New SATA Hard Drive

[Michael S.]

I can only speak for the P4C800E-D mobo--in which (using the Intel South
Bridge controller) it must be set up in BIOS and also do a CTRL-I (eye)
during POST to get to the SATA BIOS to set up the RAID volume and stripe
size, and then when Windows XP starts loading from the CD, a quick press of
F6 when BRIEFLY requested, with the Intel RAID driver on a floppy in the
floppy drive for Windows to find and a little while later, to depress "S"
when Windows install wants to know which SCSI or other drive driver needs to
load. With that mobo, using the Promise SATA controller instead of the
Intel controller takes a slightly different approach, but it still starts in
the BIOS.

If you mobo is not (and it likely is not) as mentioned above--you might need
to tell the folks that read this ng which motherboard it is. Good luck

MikeSp

 

[me!!]

Hi

Im looking to buy a new SATA hard drive. If i wish to boot from this
drive do i have to do anything to tell xp setup thati want to install
on the sata drive instead of the ide drive?

Better option is to do a drive image of my boot drive then copy it to
the new drive and boot, removing the need to reformat or reinstall.

Will it boot form the sata automatically as i dont see a SATA option
in the boot seqence in the bios.


cheers

paul

 

[D]

You need to install raid drivers from floppy, at F6 during win
install/repair, then set boot order to scsi

 

[notritenoteri]

depends on tha make of drive and the MB. SOme SATA drives SEagate for
example come with install software that will partition and format the SATA
drive for you and copy all you rboot drive over. After that it gets kind of
fuzzy on how you get rid of the old C: and replace it with the new SATA C:
Ther isa lot of stuff on the net about what works and what doesn't some of
it quite contradictory. SUggest you check google for yourself the MS
knowldege base has some stuff with a lot of disclaimers on it. Personally
I have days of updates loaded on a working C: drive and while I'd like to
change to the new Seagate I have as my bootdrive but I'm still working up
the nerve and planning plan "B" just in case.

 

[ChrisH]

If you already have an IDE drive with XP installed and want to copy
that installation over to a new SATA drive to be installed in your PC
:-

Attach the SATA drive, boot from the IDE drive and install the SATA
drivers, and then check you can actually see the SATA drive in the
Computer Management Console (Disk Management bit). No need to
partition or format it at this point.

Then using either Drive Image or Ghost 'clone' an image of the IDE
drive directly onto the new SATA drive.

Re-boot, and as it starts enter the BIOS. Choose the boot sequence
menu and check the SATA drive is listed. If it isn't (likely) then you
may also have to choose which Hard Disk to boot from in another menu
(the IDE drive will normally be placed at the top of the list, and
this is not the one you want - so change it putting the SATA drive at
the top which indicates it's the bootable hard disk). Now return to
the boot sequence list and you should have a list something like
Floppy/CD ROM/Hard Disk nnnn - the latter being your SATA drive.

Now re-boot again and the computer will boot from the SATA drive.

At this point you may want to adjust the partiton sizes, and the
easiest way is to use Partition Magic or similar. You can either
increase the partion size to encompass the whole of the new disk or
just add another partition to use the unallocated space.

Sheesh, it's taken longer to type this than to do it! It's real easy
to do and fool-proof.

ChrisH

 

[Doug Ramage]

If you already have an IDE drive with XP installed and want to copy
that installation over to a new SATA drive to be installed in your PC
:-

Attach the SATA drive, boot from the IDE drive and install the SATA
drivers, and then check you can actually see the SATA drive in the
Computer Management Console (Disk Management bit). No need to
partition or format it at this point.

Then using either Drive Image or Ghost 'clone' an image of the IDE
drive directly onto the new SATA drive.

Re-boot, and as it starts enter the BIOS. Choose the boot sequence
menu and check the SATA drive is listed. If it isn't (likely) then you
may also have to choose which Hard Disk to boot from in another menu
(the IDE drive will normally be placed at the top of the list, and
this is not the one you want - so change it putting the SATA drive at
the top which indicates it's the bootable hard disk). Now return to
the boot sequence list and you should have a list something like
Floppy/CD ROM/Hard Disk nnnn - the latter being your SATA drive.

Now re-boot again and the computer will boot from the SATA drive.

At this point you may want to adjust the partiton sizes, and the
easiest way is to use Partition Magic or similar. You can either
increase the partion size to encompass the whole of the new disk or
just add another partition to use the unallocated space.

Sheesh, it's taken longer to type this than to do it! It's real easy
to do and fool-proof.

ChrisH

I used the above method with Ghost, as I had a recent fresh Windows install
and did not want to go through the hassle of a re-install.

It even works with cloning the PATA drive to a SATA Raid0 array.

 

[notritenoteri]

Your right to a point. the problem is that the new drive is labelled
something other than C: by XP which means a lot f software that is dependent
on file paths that include C: are snookered. YAH I know use linux but
....................
MS has artivcles in the KB on how to diddle the registry file and change C:
but I need an auspicious day to do that. IF the entrails aren't right yah
just don't do it.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Your right to a point. the problem is that the new drive is labelled
something other than C: by XP which means a lot f software that is dependent
on file paths that include C: are snookered.

Not relevant. After the imaging, the original HD is removed/unplugged and
the new drive or array becomes C:.

 

[ChrisH]

Your right to a point. the problem is that the new drive is labelled
something other than C: by XP which means a lot f software that is dependent
on file paths that include C: are snookered. YAH I know use linux but
...................
MS has artivcles in the KB on how to diddle the registry file and change C:
but I need an auspicious day to do that. IF the entrails aren't right yah
just don't do it.

Then just use disk management to change the drive letters.

If XP is booting from it I'm not sure how you ended up with a
different drive letter for it.

ChrisH