IDE to SATA

Hello everyone

At the moment, on my machine, I have four HDs. Three of these are IDEs with SATA adapters, and one a straight Sata HD. My mobo supports four Satas and two IDEs, which must be used for my two DVD Roms.

I now wish to go completely to Sata, as my next upgrade Computer will be a Sata machine, and the adapters that I use may be coming to the end of there working life, which may be why I get so many problems.

My start-up disk C:\ has a Sata Adapter and I wish to use a spare Sata HD that I have (250gb) as the new C:\ start-up HD.

What please, would be the easiest way to transfer The whole of my present IDE C:\ HD to the new Sata HD. I will be partitioning the new drive?

regards

grimerz

Norton ghost is good for cloning hard drives.
it is not free though

From your description (of your hardware) thus far, it would seem that you have sufficient hardware to accomplish what you desire. The only question at this point is;

Do you want to clone your existing O/S to the 250 GB SATA,

OR,

install new and copy the data to the 250 GB SATA?

There are freeware cloning utilities available.

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It's a good day when you learn something
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Location: Alberta, CanadaD-A-L Hardware Scan

Thank you Dan. I wish to install the 250 SATA and clone the existing XP Pro OS to it so that when I fire up my machine the only difference will be an all Sata drive with exactly the same operating system on it, including the same bootcfg. Which incidently is giving me a hard time too!!

regards

grimerz

If the existing O/S disk is on an interface other than SATA (IDE), and you clone to the SATA disk, you would have to change the boot order in the bios to reflect the new "setup". (Booting from the SATA disk.) Also, you may have to alter to boot.ini file on the cloned SATA disk to reflect disk/partition numbers etc anyway.

Cloning:
I have hdclone.3.1.11 in my "collection of tools", but I've never used it yet. I have however, witnessed a DVD cloning program in operation, by the same creators. It worked perfectly. It's a 3.5 MB file so it's too large to attach. So I went searching for it.

The above lead me on a hunt through to here;
http://www.freewarefiles.com/cat_9_1...Utilities.html

which have a couple free clone programs listed.

Further searching lead me to a newer version of hdclone;

http://www.idg.pl/ftp/pc_14980.html

(You'll get a harmless pop-up ad. Just click the "X".) This one is 4.28 MB. "POBIERZ" is the download button. ;>)

I've downloaded it and scanned it with avast! anti-virus and it passed so I opened the zip file. It's the English version.

Let us know your results. If you're unsure of anything, post your questions.

__________________
It's a good day when you learn something
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Location: Alberta, CanadaD-A-L Hardware Scan

Thank you again Dan. My present system is on a IDE drive using a SATA interface, in order to connect it up to my Abit mobo which only has four SATA and two IDE drive connectors. The IDEs are used for my two DVD Roms?

Just as an aside I trained as a pilot at Claresholme Alberta many years ago. Loved the place?

take care

grimerz

"My present system is on a IDE drive using a SATA interface, in order to connect it up to my Abit mobo which only has four SATA and two IDE drive connectors. The IDEs are used for my two DVD Roms?"

Good news. Things should go fairly easily then.

__________________
It's a good day when you learn something
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Location: Alberta, CanadaD-A-L Hardware Scan

I'm in Rocky Mountain House, north of Lethbridge & Calgary. Pop 7400! ;>) I relocated here two months ago from Ottawa, Ontario.

__________________
It's a good day when you learn something
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Location: Alberta, CanadaD-A-L Hardware Scan

Thank you Dan, you have been a HUGE help which I appreciate very much.

Aaahh! Lethbridge: we young Brits and Canadian mates used to hitchhike from Claresholme to Lethbridge for just a coffee sometimes? Jeez 60 odd miles for a coffee, wonderful days?

regards

grimerz