I currently have a newly installed instance of Windows XP (32) on a second partition of my primary drive, this is shown as D: when running from my older instance of XP (32). FSX is on another (logical) partitioned physical drive (F:) and is due to be uninstalled as I prepare to abandon my older XP instance (some years old at this time) and run from the newer instance. I also wish to replace the (logical) partitioned HD with a higher performance device once I migrate to the new XP partition. Here

Bruce-Be careful with all this. There was some new licensing lockouts instituted by Microsoft with the advent of XP. I did almost the exact same thing you are planning, thinking it would be no problem and ended up spending a WEEK trying to get XP to boot. My box STILL won't boot without both my original drive physically installed along with my new one, and it still designates my "old" drive as the 0 (zero) drive even though I have set it as D: in Windows. My advice would be to physically remove all of your drives, do a clean install of XP 32, and then install all of your programs, physically adding your old drives one by one, making sure XP doesn't reassign any of them as primary 0. It's not elegant and it may take you an afternoon, but you will then be sure that all is well, and you shouldn't have to waste days trying to get your boot.ini to point to the correct XP install, OR make an hours long call begging Microsoft to reactivate your license. Here's a link to a microsoft approved procedure, but I never got it to work right (although I did give up early on it because by the time I'd found it I was already too frustrated to keep on keepin' on): << http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188 >>As an aside, you can always redesignate a drive letter to a lower or higher one in XP by following this simple procedure: << http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844 >>HTH

Bruce-Be careful with all this. There was some new licensing lockouts instituted by Microsoft with the advent of XP. I did almost the exact same thing you are planning, thinking it would be no problem and ended up spending a WEEK trying to get XP to boot. My box STILL won't boot without both my original drive physically installed along with my new one, and it still designates my "old" drive as the 0 (zero) drive even though I have set it as D: in Windows. My advice would be to physically remove all of your drives, do a clean install of XP 32, and then install all of your programs, physically adding your old drives one by one, making sure XP doesn't reassign any of them as primary 0. It's not elegant and it may take you an afternoon, but you will then be sure that all is well, and you shouldn't have to waste days trying to get your boot.ini to point to the correct XP install, OR make an hours long call begging Microsoft to reactivate your license. Here's a link to a microsoft approved procedure, but I never got it to work right (although I did give up early on it because by the time I'd found it I was already too frustrated to keep on keepin' on): << http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188 >>As an aside, you can always redesignate a drive letter to a lower or higher one in XP by following this simple procedure: << http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844 >>HTH

Thanks, I'll be careful, that regedit routine looks a little too scary! Since partition 2 on drive 0 appears as J:, and partition 1 on drive 0 (correctly) appears as C:, I might try renaming J: to D: or something, which is more logical, and might not be affected when I remove drive 1 (which would all have higher letters).Thanks again, much appreciated. Bruce.

Bruce - I don't see that you have a problem. Just remember that the OS will always call the drive on which it is installed "C". The fact that the new XP install calls the partition on drive 0 with the old XP install "J" is fine. Just rename "J" to "D" from the new instance and you're set to go. When you replace the "F" drive with something new and better it will probably still be assigned the letter "F" (assuming that your optical drive is now lettered as "E"). But, again, not to worry - if the new drive 1 doesn't get assigned to "F" (and it might not) just change it to "F" yourself. And, don't forget to set the boot.ini file for a single boot when the old instance is finally abandoned as I assumed you're dual-booting now (but, if not, ignore the boor.ini comment).Doug