Copying all files from IDE to SATA

joshlane

joshlane

joshlane

Associate
Joined
15 Feb 2007
Posts
157
Location
Lincoln
Hi,

i've just got my new 500gb sata drive to replace 2 old IDE drives.

i also have another sata drive at 80gb

what i would like to do is to copy all the programs/ xp etc from the IDE drive to the 80gb sata

is this possible without reinstalling everything?

thanks in advance,

Josh
 
Yes you can use a cloning program like Nortons Ghost.
However it's best to place OS/Games/Progs on your fastest drive which is most likely the 500Gb one. I would partition the 500Gb drive and clone the files accross personally.
 
thanks for your reply, alos found some software called acronis which seems to do a similar thing to the norton ghost.

i only have sata1 controllers on my a8nsli board so won't the 80gb sata drive be as fast as the 500gb sataII drive?

say when i clone

C: (old ide with xp/progs on) to D: (sataI drive 80gb)
and
E: (old docs IDE) to F: (500gb sataII drive)

when will i re assign the volume labels so that the D: drive becomes C: and F: becomes D:

if that makes sense...

leaving me hopefully with

C: (sata 80gb) with xp and programs
D: (sata 500gb) with docs, vids etc.

cheers,
josh
 
As said above I would also use the 500GB as the main hard drive and partition it to atleast 40gb for the OS (or 80gb if you really want 80GB) and then have the rest as storage. In general when new drives are released they are generally faster than the older models (transfer rates are quicker etc..).

If you are going to do what has been recommended to you twice now, I would make an image of your C drive, unplug your old IDE drives, create partitions with your new 500gb so it labels them C for the 40/80gb partition, then D for the rest.

Then load the image to the new C drive and check it works etc, then plug your old D drive back in and it should auto change the drive letter to something like F, make an image of that and then load the image on to your new D drive partition and then copy any other data across.
 
thats fine i'll take your advice.

when i create an image of the exisiting C: (IDE) how do i unpack that into the new partition or is it simply just a dragging the image file across?
 
I cant remember! LOL, I haven't used norton ghost in so long. What I remember doing was creating an image on to a CD, and thats all I remember!

I know you dont drag and drop it on to your new hard drive though, I think you must have to use the application to "mount" it on to the hard drive some how - I am sure someone else would shed some light (I would be interested to in the answer).
 
no worries!

right i have got acronis 10.0 from my uncle.

so i have just cloned my C: drive to the new drive. that all completed fine

so i removed my old C: drive and rebooted and it gave the messgae "failed to load operating system"

i have since put my old drive back in and the OS loads up fine.

so i need to install anything to allow the mobo to boot from the sata drive?
 
Hmm, what sata controller are you using (do you know?) you might need to check the bios for what the SATA ports are set to - I think you need them to be set to either Legacy or IDE (might be set to RAID which would be why its not working).

<edit> Actually if its said "failed to load OS" then presumable its detecting there is an OS on the hard drive which should mean its working fine. Perhaps something is wrong with the image.
 
hey all,

right i can see the new drive in:

Initial start screen
another bios screen
within bios (under boot>harddrives
in windows (sees the partition with the copy of the C drive (labelled as D:) and also the remaining partiion labelled as H:)

i am not sure what sata controller i am using, it is an asus a8n-sli deluxe board.

i have seen the thing about legacy tho currently there set to ide auto iirc.

since getting it all back up and running i have been able to browse the D: which is the clone of C: and it seems identicle. could be that the drive labels are wrong?
 
i have had a fiddle with the IDE/legacy thing and the computer has now booted with the SATA drive (clone of the C:) however i'm not sure whether it sub booted to the ide master. only one way to find out tho ;)

just in the middle of moving some files then i'll test which drive is being booted.

the C drive (master ide) has alittle windows flag under it whilst the D drive (clone) doesn't could that be having an effect?

thanks all for your help so far,

Josh
 
Mm, i would try booting off the sata alone (disconnect the other drive) to make sure it's booting correctly

If it refuses to boot I'd probably try a "fixmbr" and "fixboot" from the recovery console (boot from XP cd) to make sure it's not just the boot loader/sector that needs rewriting.
 
right, just to follow up.

i have got it working now i think i had messed up the drive partitioning on the 500gb drive as i deleted the clone partition and copied the drive to my smaller 80gb sata drive and it all booted fine. still suffering some hanging during startup (when loading items into the taskbar) which is confusing me but will post that in the relevant section.

thanks all for your help and hope that this thread serves to help others in the future.

Josh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom