can't initialize to MBR!

You are looking in the wrong place for those! Those are found at "C:\" not "C:\Windows\System32\" being the "root" of the drive itself.

If you go back to the 3 screens posted earlier the 3rd shows the root of C while the XP Mode is running. For the root of C on XP Home as well as for XP Pro or the MCE edition the same boot files will be seen there too.

As for the View tab when you look under the "Show hidden files, folders, or drives" the next 3 items are for:
-Hide empty drives in the Computer folder-
-Hide extensions for known file types-
-Hide protected operating system file types-

Once you uncheck those 3 as well Windows will prompt you with the warning where you simply click to confirm the change being made to see them made visible. When you go back to the root of C afterwards the previously hidden boot files will then be seen.

Night Hawk said:

You are looking in the wrong place for those! Those are found at "C:\" not "C:\Windows\System32\" being the "root" of the drive itself.

If you go back to the 3 screens posted earlier the 3rd shows the root of C while the XP Mode is running. For the root of C on XP Home as well as for XP Pro or the MCE edition the same boot files will be seen there too.

But I can't go into XP mode, because I only have the W7 Home Edition, and I can't boot into the drive the darn "NTLDR is missing"! While in W7 mode this is all I see of the XP drive:

You don't have to be booted into XP or be running the XP Mode to see the boot files copied over to the 7 host drive. You will have to change the view settings however in the Folder options in 7 for the time being in order to see the new entry for XP added into the 7 BCD store and boot options once the XP files are copied over from the second drive.

The reason you are not able to see the boot files is from still having those files hidden from view. I think this is where you are getting a bit confused there.

Once you have that taken care of that first step of unchecking those items where 3 of the 4 there are a mandate you can continue to copy them over and edit the boot.ini file. You then continue to the next step of adding in the new entry for XP using the EasyBCD program being a BCD editing program.

From that point on you would simply reboot and select the option for XP to see if it will load up for you. As for the missing ntldr error you have been seeing is that from setting the XP drive as first in the boot order? Likely something went wrong along the way there.

Once you have the boot files copied over, the boot.ini edit is seen to, and the new entry added into the 7 loader you will be bypassing the boot informaion on the second drive entirely using the 7 boot loader instead with the XP Loader present on the 7 host/boot drive.

I added a screen for which items in the View tab to see unchecked to help you a bit further. You get in there by the "menu bar>Tools>Folder options>View" tab with any WE window open or simply go into the "Control Panel>Folder options" sub there to see those taken care of.

Night Hawk said:

The reason you are not able to see the boot files is from still having those files hidden from view. I think this is where you are getting a bit confused there.

Once you have that taken care of that first step of unchecking those items where 3 of the 4 there are a mandate you can continue to copy them over and edit the boot.ini file. You then continue to the next step of adding in the new entry for XP using the EasyBCD program being a BCD editing program.

From that point on you would simply reboot and select the option for XP to see if it will load up for you. As for the missing ntldr error you have been seeing is that from setting the XP drive as first in the boot order? Likely something went wrong along the way there.

Once you have the boot files copied over, the boot.ini edit is seen to, and the new entry added into the 7 loader you will be bypassing the boot informaion on the second drive entirely using the 7 boot loader instead with the XP Loader present on the 7 host/boot drive.

I added a screen for which items in the View tab to see unchecked to help you a bit further. You get in there by the "menu bar>Tools>Folder options>View" tab with any WE window open or simply go into the "Control Panel>Folder options" sub there to see those taken care of.

That is exactly what my folder options look like:

You missed one! Now try unchecking the "Hide empty drives in Computer folder" item to see if that helps any when going back to browse the root of the XP drive to see if you now are able to view the files outside of the Windows directory there.

Night Hawk said:

You missed one! Now try unchecking the "Hide empty drives in Computer folder" item to see if that helps any when going back to browse the root of the XP drive to see if you now are able to view the files outside of the Windows directory there.

True, but it still shows only this:

You shouldn't be having any problem seeing the files at the root if you had XP running while the 7 drive was unplugged. If you simply went ahead and got XP while the 7 drive was plugged in that would explain why 7 wouldn't start up afterwards until you corrected that with the startup repair tool.

In that case the missing ntldr error would be seen when setting the XP drive as first due to the various attempts you made collectively seeing mbr entries on both drives for XP without any boot files there instead of simply seeing a flashing dash in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

If you discover that the boot files are present your next two steps would simply be editing the boot.ini file to insure that correction is addressed and adding the new entry into the 7 boot loader.

Night Hawk said:

You shouldn't be having any problem seeing the files at the root if you had XP running while the 7 drive was unplugged. If you simply went ahead and got XP while the 7 drive was plugged in that would explain why 7 wouldn't start up afterwards until you corrected that with the startup repair tool.

This may be how things happened.

Night Hawk said:

In that case the missing ntldr error would be seen when setting the XP drive as first due to the various attempts you made collectively seeing mbr entries on both drives for XP without any boot files there instead of simply seeing a flashing dash in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

If you discover that the boot files are present your next two steps would simply be editing the boot.ini file to insure that correction is addressed and adding the new entry into the 7 boot loader.

Well, they don't seem to be present, at least not visible! What should be our next step then?

Here is an update on what I did today.
By a stroke of brilliance (ha! ) I cranked up my second PC, an old Compaq with XP), copied the boot files on a little flash drive, and added them to my W7 root. Then I downloaded EasyBCD and added the XP drive.
Then I held my breath, and rebooted my machine.
Low and behold, it gave me a choice of both drives!
However, when I select the XP drive, it asks how I want to open it (the 5 options from "SAFE MODE" over "SM with Networking", "SM with Command Prompt", to "Open Windows normally")
I tried all 5 except "SM with Command Prompt", and none opens XP, but keeps repeating the boot process, offering both OSes.

Could this be the reason:
In EasyBCD the XP drive shows as "D", not "F".
I made sure not to let EBCD "select automatically", but manually entered F as the drive. It just ignored me!

You first have to verify which drive letter is assigned in the DM for the XP drive. If F you apparently used D when adding the new entry in offsetting things a bit but wouldn't be seeing the XP boot options menu!

In the 7 DM first make sure the XP drive is set with the letter you want to use for the XP drive if not already seen in WE as F. The options found in the EasyBCD's Advanced Settings will allow you to reassociate the XP entry with the correct drive letter as well.(see attached image) Once you change and even rename the entry simply click on the "save" button to save the change made.

The F8 boot menu shows that XP is loading but having a problem of some type where you will want to take notice of any error messages like those seen if a blue screen appears in order to trace the problem.

Knowing that XP made the attempt however is certainly good news for you. Now to get it running normally! You may end up needing another full install to replace the present following the guide or a repair install if the option is seen during the setup to correct initial installation problems.

Once you are at the XP desktop and can connect online the first item will be the optional hardware updates for XP. The MS update may just locate and display the needed sata/Raid controller drivers as part of the total number you can expect! Often that's how you can get the "hard2find" type. Go for it!