Terry Pinnell wrote

Sorry about the length of this, but I reckon
it's necessary to provide a full picture

It is indeed, and is much better than the same info
in multiple posts in response to further questions.

and hence get some much-needed help please.

Following my previous posts, I have now installed a new 200GB
HD to replace the 60GB one with 4 bad blocks, as recommended.

But have you stopped that furious drunken grave dancing ?

However, although I'm sending this from a working 3-drive system, the
2-drive configuration I'm trying to achieve resolutely refuses to work.

Because you arent making the copys of XP the right way and
those boots involve the 60G drive that you are trying to remove
even when you think you are booting XP off one of the 200G drives.

That's after slogging at it for 3 days without success.
I'd hoped to sort it without returning here for more
help, but I have to admit defeat for the time being!

I won't attempt to describe all the details
of the various combinations I've tried.

No need, its obvious what the problem is.

Very briefly:

- The original 2 identical 60GB disks both had a partition
of about 12GB containing my XP Home OS (and around
half of my program files), and I could boot to either.

But could you boot to either with just one of the 60G drives connected ?

Bet you couldnt.

That gave me a feeling of security, and I'd like to continue that.

Yes, its got some advantages, particularly
when the drives are known to be flakey.

(I also have an *image* of my OS, and I aim to update
that reasonably often, as another security measure.)

Yes, well worth having.

- I eventually succeeded in getting OS copies also into partitions
on the 2 identical 200GB HDs. (That's the 200GB added a few
weeks ago via an extra PCI card; and the latest identical 200GB,
bought as replacement for the faulty 60GB.)

- I am able to boot up from each of these
when that is the only drive present,

You completely sure about that ?

and in various 3-drive configurations,
including the one I have at present.

- For simplicity, power and noise reasons,
I want to get rid of the remaining 60GB disk.

Sure, I would too.

- But that doesn't work. I get a variety of errors, depending
on which one I try to boot, including for example:
"Press a key to reboot" (then cycling repeatedly)
"NTLDR is missing..."

That indicates that the boot needs what is on the missing 60G drive.

"Some other file or other (HAL.DLL?) is missing..."
All those are presumably symptomatic
of XP not finding a bootable partition?

No, symptomatic of some of what it needs in the
surprisingly complex boot sequence that is involved
with XP not being visible with the 60G drive missing.

Yet, as I said, there *is* one,

Yes.

and it does work in other circumstances.

Yes, when the 60G drive which has what is needed is present.

Then, late last night, with only the 200GB disks in place (as disk
0 and disk 1), I started to get panic-generating messages like:
"A problem is preventing Windows accurately checking
the licence for this computer. Error code 0x80090006"
"Windows cannot load the user's profile but has logged you on
with the default profile for this system" (But it got no further.)

Again, because that stuff is on the missing 60G drive.

Here's what my setup is right now
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/I...entStatus1.gif

One major source of confusion for me throughout this
exercise is: which of these OSs am I 'in' right now?

Yeah, that can get very confusing. In spades with just
where XP found various crucial bits involved in a full XP
boot. They arent all in what you think of as the copy
of XP if you havent done the copy process properly.

More on that below.

I think I have booted to Disk 1 Partition 1. That's the default
shown in Settings Startup. It is also consistent with what
I see in boot.ini. And that's also consistent with the XP Disk
Management display showing 'boot' in that entry.

Yes, but that doesnt prove anything about where
XP got all the components it uses during the boot.

IOW, right now I'm using the OS copy that is in H.
BUT then why is Disk 0 Partition 1 called C?

XP is quite happy to install on any drive you like.

And that drive is a quite separate issue to the
drive that boot.ini and ntldr are used from too.

I thought the boot partition automatically got re-labeled by XP to C?

Nope, the NT/2K/XP family dont work like that, the
drive letters are much more persistent than that.

OK, bottom line. I'm sorely tempted to stick with what I have now,
and just tidy up shortcuts, reorganise files and folders, etc.

Not a good idea. You've got one hell of a mess now and
the brown stuff will hit the fan very comprehensively indeed
if the 60G drive dies now. You wont be able to boot XP.

But it would be good to get down to 2 drives.

Yes, if only to get a config that will boot if the 60G drive dies.

400 GB should be plenty, even with two 12GB OS
partitions, and my comprehensive backup precautions.

Can the experts here suggest a safe way of achieving that please?

The safest way is to start again from scratch and do a clean install
of XP on each of the 200G drives with just one drive connected.
And have that partition contain XP and all the apps.

Then fix the letter each of the other partitions gets so they
get the same letter regardless of which copy of XP is booted.
That fixing is done in disk management and you will need to do
it with each of the copys of XP booted, obviously one at a time.


If you dont want to go that route because of the effort involved,
you should be able to get the same result by copying the install
that is on the 60G drive to each of the 200G drives, BUT ITS
ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL TO MAKE THE COPY WITH SOMETHING
LIKE TRUE IMAGE FROM THE BOOTED CD SO YOU CAN STOP
ONCE THE COPY HAS BEEN MADE AND PHYSICALLY DISCONNECT
THE 60G DRIVE BEFORE BOOTING THE COPY OF XP FOR THE
FIRST TIME.

The problem you are seeing currently is because you have booted
the copy of XP with the 60G drive still connected on the first boot
after the copy has been made and when you do that, the boot off
the partition on the 200G drive uses some stuff on the 60G drive and
that means that the boot will fail when the 60G drive isnt connected.

When you boot the copy on the 200G drive for the first time after
the copy has been made, with the 60G drive unplugged, XP will
claim that it has found new hardware and will ask to be allowed
to reboot. Allow that, and it will boot up into XP fine with no 60G
drive present. You can then connect the 60G drive again and it
will continue to boot fine with the 60G drive missing later.