multiple operating system but only boot's to one

[maximum10]

hi
i have 2 OS on 2 hard drives, the second OS wasn't showing on boot up nor in the boot.ini
so i ran the recovery console and did the
bootcfg /rebuild
it found the second OS so i added it and named it Audio XP now when i boot up i have the option of my default OS and the Audio XP OS but when i boot into either it starts up in my default OS, so it seems on boot up that ive now got 2 choices of the same OS my second one still isn't there.
havent got a clue why its doing this.
thanks

edit to add: i dont have a boot loader and when ive had this working in the past i didnt use a boot loader, i think 

[patio]

Was the 2nd os on the 2nd HDD installed with the 1st HDD hooked up ? ?
If not you will need to install a bootloader.
Or simply choose the drive at boot from within setup...

[maximum10]

tbh m8 i cant remember if the first HDD was hooked up or not, it was a while ago that id done this , cant remember when or why it stopped working.
i'll give a boot loader a try is there a free one you could recommend?

[Helpmeh]

If you check your BOOT.INI file it will probably show that it has 2 options, one saying windows xp, the other, audio xp, but they both boot to windows xp.

[maximum10]

yes thats exactly what its doing.
my boot.ini
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Audio" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

[maximum10]

does that boot.ini look correct?

[Helpmeh]

Where do you have the second os installed? It really should be on a different partition.

[maximum10]

its on a different HDD

[patio]

See Here...

The boot ini is incorrect...if Audio is indeed installed to the second drive the disk # should be 1...not 0

[maximum10]

so it should read like this?

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Audio" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

[patio]

Worth a try...did you read the article ? ?
Make sure to save a copy of the old one in case...

[maximum10]

missed the link the first time having a look now thanks, and ill try that ini change in a min

[maximum10]

ok just gave that a go, the error i got was

windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem
could not read from the selected boot disk, check boot path and disk hardware

[maximum10]

what if i try this

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Audio" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

[maximum10]

that didnt work i got the error

windows could not start because of the following missing or corupt files
<windows root>\system32\hal.dll
please reinstall a copy of the above file