Help on IDE to SATA and SysPrep Required Please.

[Kardon Coupé]

Dear All,

I have not long done a re-install, so really don't want to be doing another
one so soon, but I've just been given a SATA drive to replace my IDE C
Drive for Xmas....

I've done a bit of research and it appears it can be done the easy way, by
Ghosting, and redumping to new drive, and using SysPrep to tell it to
rebuild the drivers, etc, and then it will use the SATA, otherwise I'm
likely to get numerous errors, BSOD's, etc...

But the link I've stumbled across (amongst others) don't really give me any
actual indication of using this tool after I've Ghosted....

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457080.aspx

am I suppose to clone the drive, swap the drives and use SysPrep, or use
SysPrep, clone the drive, and reboot from the new drive?

I'm confused, has anybody successfully done the IDE to SATA swap without
needing a re-install, and if you have, can you please tell me the steps you
took to achieve my requirements..

Regards
Paul.

 

[sgopus]

The only way to get the sata drivers installed is with an install of windows.
or a repair install.
how can you clone the drive to the sata if the sata is not physically
recognized to be able to write to it? the drivers have to be installed first.

 

[Kardon Coupé]

I'd install the drivers onto the machine, as I can plug the SATA in to the
machine now to regonise it, and then clone my IDE into the SATA.....I think,
like I said, I've never done this before....

 

[sgopus]

ok, that makes sense.

install the drivers on a working version of windows, I would then ensure the
sata drive is able to be seen before doing a clone.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Forgive me while I type and think aloud. You have onboard SATA (implied).
You current XP is installed on onboard ide hard drive (terribly implied).

Why can't you simply enable the SATA controller in the bios, boot to XP,
install the driver if needed. Attach the SATA hard drive. Ghost from the
ide to SATA drive from boot media, remove the ide drive and instruct the
bios to boot from CD, then do a repair install, or course change to bios to
boot from SATA after all is complete?

 

[Kardon Coupé]

First Implied statment, correct, Second Implied Statment, also correct...

I've cloned my boot hdd to the sata, and I did switch the bios, but alas it
won't boot... I mean, litterally, I can't get anything to boot.... the only
way I can get my machine to boot is by disabling the sata in the bios.....

So I'm thinking, before I attempt anything, even a repair dvd install, I
think I'm going to need to update my BIOS to the latest version (even though
I thought it was).....

One question I have, if I have the IDE connected at the same time, does it
need to be blanked? i.e. I've chucked a XP Installed HDD in my machine b4 to
remove files from it, when a persons comp died, and I didn't have a problem
with 2 XP drives in, as it knew which one to boot from....But, the machine
wasn't even booting when I had the Sata in (on channel 1) and it was just a
formated blank drive......

Very weird...

 

[sgopus]

Possibly a conflict with having the IDE and the sata set as master?
in the sata it shouldn't matter, but there is always a possibly with
computers, I would try changing jumpers and see if it makes a difference.
if the sata drivers are installed properly, it should work.
I'm going to be dealing with this same issue in the near future, as I'm
building a new pc and it has ide now as master and I will be adding sata
drives to it, I don't think I'll be making any of the sata as masters, till I
get more familiar with the issues.

is there a possiblity you have the sata drive plugged into the wrong port,
with my motherboard there are two different types Gigabyte and (dang I can't
remember what the name is) but it requires two different drivers and one is
not compatable with W2k Pro. and causes a crash when the drivers are loaded

 

[Kardon Coupé]

Don't think it is an issue with the ports (but I could be wrong), as I have
it in port1, it registers in the BIOS, but XP doesn't boot from it (whilst
the IDE is in), boots XP with it turned off in the BIOS, and then hot
plugged during XP running, it knows it there.......so, tomorrow (as I've
just got in from work and I'm knackered) I'll be trying to boot just off the
SATA, and disconnecting the IDE, just to see....

I'll report back and let ya know tomorrow on the outcome...

There is one thing I have just thought, and I'll do some research in the
meantime...... SATA II on a SATA port, shouldn't be an issue?

 

[sgopus]

Here is a very interesting article on sata and the various issues with AHCI
mode and XP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
look down the page and review the problems encountered portion, very
informative.

unfortunetly it gives an excuse to use Vista instead of XP as Vista supports
AHCI natively, while XP needs third party drivers.

 

[sgopus]

Also here's a thought. if the Sata port while not using the AHCI mode is
emulating the IDE and the current master HD is IDE, could this be causing a
conflict?

and do you have the SATA AHCI/Raid mode turned on in your bios?

 

[Lil' Dave]

Here's an interesting problem I've had with an early SATA I only/ 2 ide port
motherboards. Initially, I went with onboard ide only. XP installed fine.
SATA disabled in the bios.

Curious, I wanted to see if a bootable SATA drive would work on the
motherboard, booting XP. During the learning experience, found that only 2
ports at anytime could be used with a device or devices attached to those
ports. 2 ide, or SATA and one ide port. Additionally, if enabled SATA and
maintained the primary ide port with a hard drive on that ide port, the bios
would list an additional ide controller on irq 10. In that case, I had to
disable the secondary port. For a SATA boot drive, I had to use the remap
to ide primary option in the bios, leave the ide primary port enabled with
no devices attached to it. In that case, no additional ide port showed in
the bios on irq 10.

In the learning experience, I imaged the ide bootable hard drive to a
firewire drive. Removed the ide hard drive and setup SATA to remap to the
primary ide port as previously explained, and attached a new SATA II
jumpered as SATA I hard drive. Restored said image to the SATA hard drive
from the firewire drive. XP started, but, never got to the log-on screen.
Even giving it 30 minutes for anything it may be doing not observable to the
user. No errors messages, nothing.

After much consternation, removed the SATA drive, and reattached the ide
drive. Setup the bios with SATA disabled again. Worked fine. Went back to
bios setup. Simply enabled the SATA port, but did not attach any SATA
drives. Booted to XP, found new hardware, did its thing successfully.
Imaged this installation to the firewire hard drive. Setup the SATA and
bios as previously mentioned. Removed the ide hard drive. Restored the
image to the SATA drive. XP booted successfully. Worked fine since.


I probably could have used the repair option in the first instance I tried,
but, I found something new in my stubborness.

 

[Kardon Coupé]

Nope have the RAID off, as I'm only using one SATA and don't plan on using
RAID...

(Still ain't got around to testing this, but the moment I do try I will
report back)

 

[sgopus]

in the article, it says you need to enable the sata raid controller, not
actually build the raid mirror, in order for the sata to operate in ACHI mode
else it operates in IDE emulation mode and this may cause problems if trying
to use SATA as a boot hd while haveing the IDE boot hd connected.

 

[Kardon Coupé]

Looks like I'm returning with bad news, it didn't work....

I'd tried a few things....

First off, the Primary Master IDE was disconnected and the SATA Drive was
connected to Sata port 1....(using 4 different sata cables)

Then within the BIOS, I tried the following Settings, unfortunatley all came
to the same result, didn't boot....

RAID was enabled and disabled (but I didn't configure the RAID set, as I
wasn't using it as RAID)
JMicron Sata was enabled in all tests
SATA Drive was set at Boot Master
Extended IDE Drive set as AUTO (if it was set as NONE the SATA HDD wasn't
appearing)
Access Mode tried on both AUTO and Large, neither helped

My Mobo is a ASUS P5N-E Sli, with the latest BIOS according to the ASUS
website (I'm tempted to Email ASUS for their input)
SATA HDD trying to connect is a Hitachi Deskstar Model HDT725032VLA360 320GB
P7K500 (there is no apparant tools available to do anything with this drive)

Connect it whilst Windows XP is running, it see's it, and can use it, etc,
etc...

I'm stumped....

 

[Anna]

Looks like I'm returning with bad news, it didn't work....

I'd tried a few things....

First off, the Primary Master IDE was disconnected and the SATA Drive was
connected to Sata port 1....(using 4 different sata cables)

Then within the BIOS, I tried the following Settings, unfortunatley all
came to the same result, didn't boot....

RAID was enabled and disabled (but I didn't configure the RAID set, as I
wasn't using it as RAID)
JMicron Sata was enabled in all tests
SATA Drive was set at Boot Master
Extended IDE Drive set as AUTO (if it was set as NONE the SATA HDD wasn't
appearing)
Access Mode tried on both AUTO and Large, neither helped

My Mobo is a ASUS P5N-E Sli, with the latest BIOS according to the ASUS
website (I'm tempted to Email ASUS for their input)
SATA HDD trying to connect is a Hitachi Deskstar Model HDT725032VLA360
320GB P7K500 (there is no apparant tools available to do anything with
this drive)

Connect it whilst Windows XP is running, it see's it, and can use it, etc,
etc...

I'm stumped....

Paul:
I realize this has been an ongoing extensive thread but as I look over the
various postings I'm not clear as to the precise nature of your problem with
this SATA HDD. So if you're inclined to do so, would you respond to the
following?

1. Do you have a bootable, functional PATA (IDE) HDD connected to the
system? If so, no problems there notwithstanding whatever problem you're
having with your Hitachi SATA HDD?

2. What exactly *is* the problem re your SATA HDD? You indicate it doesn't
boot. Does that mean you've installed the XP OS onto that SATA HDD? How did
you accomplish this? Did it boot at one point in time, but now it doesn't?

Was that a fresh install of the OS? Or did you use a disk-cloning program to
clone the contents of your PATA HDD to the SATA HDD?

3. Assuming the SATA HDD was the recipient of a clone, are you certain that
the disk cloning operation was successful? Could this simply be a case of a
"bad" clone?

4. Since you're involved with a non-RAID configuration, all your BIOS
elements relative to the SATA HDD should be the default settings. There
should be *no* need to change any of those settings. You've checked this?

5. You've checked the boot priority order in your BIOS and all is well
there?

6. You're quite sure you've properly connected the SATA HDD to one or
another of the motherboard's SATA connectors, right? And presumably no
problem with its power connection.

Anyway, if you feel all the above has already been discussed & reviewed to
your satisfaction, just disregard my questions.
Anna

 

[Kardon Coupé]

Paul:

I realize this has been an ongoing extensive thread but as I look over the
various postings I'm not clear as to the precise nature of your problem
with this SATA HDD. So if you're inclined to do so, would you respond to
the following?

No Problem

1. Do you have a bootable, functional PATA (IDE) HDD connected to the
system? If so, no problems there notwithstanding whatever problem you're
having with your Hitachi SATA HDD?

Not having any problems with my existing C: PATA booting, boots fine.

2. What exactly *is* the problem re your SATA HDD? You indicate it doesn't
boot. Does that mean you've installed the XP OS onto that SATA HDD? How
did you accomplish this? Did it boot at one point in time, but now it
doesn't?

I was a cloned copy of my working PATA, when it gets to the point were the
screen would display the Windows XP loading screen, with the blue scrolling
bar, I just get a blank screen with a flashing cursur underbar top left of
the screen, and constant HDD access (according to the Indicator light, I
don't actually know which HDD it is trying to read/access, I've got 1 other
IDE's in there, Secondary Master)

Was that a fresh install of the OS? Or did you use a disk-cloning program
to clone the contents of your PATA HDD to the SATA HDD?

Disk Cloning.

3. Assuming the SATA HDD was the recipient of a clone, are you certain
that the disk cloning operation was successful? Could this simply be a
case of a "bad" clone?

That I didn't actually think of....

4. Since you're involved with a non-RAID configuration, all your BIOS
elements relative to the SATA HDD should be the default settings. There
should be *no* need to change any of those settings. You've checked this?

Yeah, I've tried it with deafult settings, even flicking the jumper
settings, to have it fresh, fresh, so to speak.

5. You've checked the boot priority order in your BIOS and all is well
there?

The Boot priority was configured to Boot of the SATA

6. You're quite sure you've properly connected the SATA HDD to one or
another of the motherboard's SATA connectors, right? And presumably no
problem with its power connection.

I'm guessing it isn't a power issue, I have a fairily decent quality PSU,
with high wattage. But admitadly, I have only tried SATA Port 1, as I didn't
know you could boot of the others, as I was treating it like IDE, with the
First one is generally the boot drive...

Anyway, if you feel all the above has already been discussed & reviewed to
your satisfaction, just disregard my questions.
Anna

There is one thing I'm going to try though I'm going to switch back to the
SATA boot, and try a fresh install, just to see if the HDD is seen in XP
setup, and all the rest.... I'll come back to you on that one.....

Thanks for the input...
Regards
Paul

 

[Anna]

Paul:
Well, it certainly sounds like a failed disk cloning operation. Have you
tried the disk cloning multiple times? Same results? BTW, what disk cloning
program are you using?

It certainly sounds wise to (at least temporarily) make a fresh install of
the OS. If you're able to achieve a bootable, functioning HDD that way, then
it would obviously point to a botched disk cloning effort.
Anna

 

[Kardon Coupé]

Well,

I'd decided to give up on messing around, as I thought to myself, start the
install, switch back to my main drive when I'm in the mood to install all my
applications on the fresh install....

So, removed PATA, connected SATA (with another Cable I'd acquired, just to
be sure the other 4 I had weren't faulty) and chucked the DVD in, blue set
up screen, loading stuff, then it got to "Starting Windows Setup" (bottom
left) {or what ever it actually says} and then it just sat there?? With Hard
Drive Access light on....

I'm wondering if it is a faulty HDD, but why would Windows XP see it, and
format it with no errors....

Very weird...