When repairing an XP/Linux installation where the boot.ini file was somehow lost?/deleted? not showing up at all a boot floppy made for 98SE was all it took to repair/replace that. The simple fdisk /mbr command at the dos prompt when booting off the floppy solved that quick. With the XP installation cd you can also choose the repair option upon booting from that to reach the recovery console. At the prompt enter either or both of the commands "fixboot" and "fixmbr" to give that a try. But remember you just made a major hardware change upon swapping out the primary drive.
You are most likely going to have to delete the current installation(not wipe drive) in order to have a working copy of Windows running again. The XP installer will clean up all of the leftovers from the original installation and start fresh. That will produce a new mbr at the same time. A quick repair with the two commands probably won't see the results you are after. It may or may not see any results there. Just be ready for a new install of XP. That is the one thing that will see a working OS.
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