Cloning from IDE drive to a SATA drive

[AGlez]

I want to replace my bootable IDE hard drive with an internal SATA drive and
to make this last one the bootable (one and only) drive withouht the hassle
of reinstalling Windows and the rest of the programs and settings that I have
already installed in my old IDE drive. Can I do that with the Win XP Pro
backup utility? If not, is there any other free software that will let me do
this one-time-only procedure?
Thanks

 

[John John (MVP)]

The hard drive manufacturer probably has a free utility available for
this, check their web site. Remove/disconnect the old drive when you
try to boot the new one for the first time, once the new drive has
successfully booted you can reconnect the old drive if you want. You
may encounter controller difficulties booting the SATA drive, the
computer may boot to an 0x7b error. Before you try the cloning job make
sure that the present installation on the IDE drive has the SATA drivers
installed.

John