Adding a temporary 2nd SATA disk - how?

[Tuscan]

Can someone please help me out on this? Probably a numpty question but I don't want to lose a lifetimes data doing something wrong here.

I am running XP Pro on Abit KV7. Currently one SATA hard drive on there - no problems. I would like to upgrade to a larger HDD now.

Essentially what I was wanting do was to simply add a 2nd SATA HDD and use Norton Ghost to clone from the current disk to the empty 2nd HDD. I would then take out the first drive and use it as a mobile HDD for back-ups. So, I would be running with just one (the new) disk in the PC. If this was all IDE, it will be cloning master to slave - easy. But I am stuck with the SATA things.

So I want to effectively clone my SATA "master" drive onto a new SATA drive. I have added that drive and it can be seen when booting up, but then I get a 'non system disk error' and Windows will not start. I guess that the PC sees both SATAs and does not know that one had an OS installed, while the other is blank. How do I do it then please?

Does a RAID need to be set up, if so what type? I know nothing about these and don't want to risk my data on my full drive! So what is the best way of going about this task please?

 

[Tuscan]

Thanks for that.

Well, in the boot up screens it shows 2 drives installed. I think what I posted before may have mislead you. In the BIOS itself, I don't see anywhere where the drives are listed so I can dictate the boot sequence. Both drives are visible in the RAID BIOS, but I don't know what I am doing in there to be honest.

Is it case that I have to use the RAID BIOS then whether I like it or not. If so then, do I have to set up a RAID to span them or something like that.

Sorry for the Sunday morning numptyness, but I imagined that things would have been liked you describe, but it does not appear to be that way.