Upgrading to SATA

[Digital Photography Now]

A while back I upgraded my motherboard and CPU from an Athlon XP 3000+
system (which was used to build a new system for my kids) to a Athlon 64
3800 X2. The new motherboard has SATA and I have fitted a SATA drive, but at
the moment it's only operating as a file store as I can't figure a way of
migrating my Windows XP Pro installation from the original ATA drive to the
SATA drive. I don't really want to reinstall everything. Is it actually
possible?

Thanks,

IB

 

[Rod Speed]

A while back I upgraded my motherboard and CPU from an Athlon XP 3000+
system (which was used to build a new system for my kids) to a Athlon
64 3800 X2. The new motherboard has SATA and I have fitted a SATA
drive, but at the moment it's only operating as a file store as I
can't figure a way of migrating my Windows XP Pro installation from
the original ATA drive to the SATA drive. I don't really want to
reinstall everything. Is it actually possible?

Yes, try a repair install.

Boot the XP CD, best to slipsteam it with SP2 first.

Tell it to install XP where its currently installed AND DONT
FORMAT THAT PARTITION. The install will say that its found
an earlier install and will offer to repair that. Say yes.

 

[SteveH]

Yes, try a repair install.

Boot the XP CD, best to slipsteam it with SP2 first.

Tell it to install XP where its currently installed AND DONT
FORMAT THAT PARTITION. The install will say that its found
an earlier install and will offer to repair that. Say yes.

How will that migrate his XP install onto the SATA drive? That will just
reinstall it over the top of the install on the IDE drive.

Provided the o/p can store the stuff currently on the SATA drive and he has
the driver for it, he just wants to use one of the disk cloning programs
like Norton Ghost or similar.

SteveH

 

[Jan Alter]

How will that migrate his XP install onto the SATA drive? That will just
reinstall it over the top of the install on the IDE drive.

Provided the o/p can store the stuff currently on the SATA drive and he
has the driver for it, he just wants to use one of the disk cloning
programs like Norton Ghost or similar.

SteveH

As Steve says, you want to use a disc cloning tool. The new SATA drive
you added may even have a cloning tool available free from the manufacture's
website. If not then Ghost would do this or Acronis True Image, which I have
found to be even more straight forward and reliable.

 

[Digital Photography Now]

I have attempted the switch before and used Ghost to clone the old drive
onto the new SATA drive, but I've been stumped at this stage as I could not
get the SATA drive recognised by the BIOS as the boot drive.

My botherboard has two sets of SATA RAID management tools on it, for a
start.

Very confusing.

Ian

 

[Jan Alter]

I have attempted the switch before and used Ghost to clone the old drive
onto the new SATA drive, but I've been stumped at this stage as I could not
get the SATA drive recognised by the BIOS as the boot drive.

My botherboard has two sets of SATA RAID management tools on it, for a
start.

Very confusing.

Ian

Go into the bios and look to see what choices you have for your first boot
device. If SATA drive is not listed then choose the SCSI , then save your
settings and try booting. Do make sure that you have cloned your drive to
the SATA drive beforehand.

If it doesn't work it would be helpful if you could list in your response
as what choices are given for the first boot device. One additional thing I
would try when doing this is to disconnect the IDE drive from the cable that
you currently have running as the boot drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

How will that migrate his XP install onto the SATA drive? That will just reinstall it
over the top of the install on the IDE drive.

Yeah, managed to **** that up rather comprehensively.

Provided the o/p can store the stuff currently on the SATA drive and he has the driver
for it, he just wants to use one of the disk
cloning programs like Norton Ghost or similar.

Yep, and I much prefer True Image for that cloning.

Ghost 9 and 10 wont clone from the bootable CD
and cloning at the XP level is a complete obscenity.

Its doable with Ghost 2003 but you have to be careful
to unplug the IDE drive for the first boot of the clone on
the SATA drive, otherwise the boot will get comprehensively
screwed and it wont boot when the IDE is wiped.

If the clone doesnt boot, THEN try the repair install on that.