Did you disconnect the XP drive, put in a new drive and then install
Win 8? If that is the case disconnect the Win 8 drive... hook up your
XP drive to that Santa cable and turn on the computer... if it can
boot it will boot.

However, if you left the XP drive hooked up and installed a new drive
that you then installed Win 8 with both drives on the SATA controller
then, if XP was OK you should be seeing a boot loader asking you
which operating you wish to boot. If you don't see a choice then
something is wrong ... but regardless if you did it this way Win 8
overwrote you boot sector and you will have to restore it in order to
boot back into XP.

If you are unsure as to what happened you can go the XP drives
manufacture, i.e Seagate... Western Digital...Hatichi ...whatever and
download diagnostic software to make a CD from a ISO file. Then boot
off the CD and run tests on the hard drive to find out if it is still
good. It won't fix XP but it will tell you if the drive is bad and if
it is under warranty. Hopefully, you have a image file back of your
XP drive which will at least allow you to recover any files.

Mark Rode



> >
> > Suppose I hook up the xp hdd to the 2nd sata port and power it on
> > > would I be able to test (after modifying the BIOS) my hunch or
> would I screw up the whole system.?
> > > Any other suggestions would be greatefully acknowledged.
> > > Venkat
> >

                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>