Problem with boot.ini?

I can't run a drive by itself. It works fine with the TB drive but apparently the boot.ini file(s) weren't written to my second drive. They are both sata and they both have XP loaded on them . How can I get them to work independently of each other. They both had the OS loaded on them independently so why does the second drive need the ini file from the first drive? Take one out and it says something about a hal file missing. I try and run the fix.mbr or something and it doesn't help.The first drive can boot by itself. I do have a third drive just for storage and of course I can take that out. I am trying to completely clean out the first drive and put 7 on there. I don't want to keep any of the files. I've already transferred everything I want from there to the storage drive.