Two hard drives two os

[Jokerman]

I have two hard drives
C is 300gb connected with a SATA cable.
D is 80gb connected via a SATA lead (the HD is IDE but has a SATA to IDE converter). 
Windows XP on C is giving a bit of trouble, windows explorer stops responding, programs hang etc.  I have run Norton utilities, Tuneup Utilities 2009, run Norton anti-virus and Spybot but there is still no improvement.

As my wife uses the computer a lot, she would not be too happy to wait for me to do a fresh install and then install all the programs and data.  Could I install windows XP on D, them my programs, then if all is running smoothly, load my data, then clone the drive and restore it on drive C?

If this is possible how would I go about it?

Regards,
Jokerman

[Allan]

Yes, yes, no. You can't clone a system drive from, say d: and restore it to "c:". The problem is that all of the installed programs will have registry entries for D: drive.

Why not just tell us what all of the specific issues are and see if we can help. If you suspect malware, please follow the instructions in the following link and post your logs in the thread you create (NOT in this thread):
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html

[Jokerman]

As I said windows explorer starts, then stops responding, it takes ages for control panel to stop the non-responding program.  This is very frustrating when just trying to find and open a document.  Other programs start but just hang after a short while (word, excel, firefox) my back up software (Paragon) used to backup my entire hard drive in an hour and a half, now it takes five or six even though I haven't added that many files.   As it seems that windows is to blame, then it seems sensible to do a fresh install (I've already tried the repair option), hence my original question.

[Allan]

"Windows" is an operating system. It is not "to blame" for anything.

Let's rule out malware. Please follow the instructions in the following link and post your logs in the thread you create (NOT in this thread):
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html