Installing a new SATA hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Robinson
  • Start date Start date
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David Robinson

Hi.

Sorry if this question is an obvious one but I'm fairly new to this. I want
to install a new larger SATA hard drive, my motherboard supports this
although at the moment it has an ATA hard drive. I want to use the SATA as
the master and the old drive as a slave.

Because my Win XP installation is old and cluttered I plan to install the
new drive, format it and install a fresh XP on it before transferring my
files from the old drive to the new one. Once this is done I will reformat
the old drive for use as a back up.

Can I use ATA and SATA in the same system? Will it be possible to do the
above i.e have a fresh XP install that will 'see' the old drive.

Any help, comments, tips or pointers to online articles would be very
welcome.

Thanks in advance.

David
 
I have this setup at home and it works for me. What I would recommend is
installing the SATA HDD when you do the fresh install of XP. Be sure to get
the SATA driver file (should have come pre-bundled with your
computer/motherboard), because when you install Windows XP it will ask you to
press (I believe) F2 to install a third party driver. While doing this I
would recommmend disconecting your ATA HDD completely to ensure that nothing
happens to it.
 
David Robinson said:
Because my Win XP installation is old and cluttered I plan to install the
new drive, format it and install a fresh XP on it before transferring my
files from the old drive to the new one. Once this is done I will reformat
the old drive for use as a back up.

Can I use ATA and SATA in the same system? Will it be possible to do the
above i.e have a fresh XP install that will 'see' the old drive.
Click to expand...

Should be no problem.

Your SATA controller may require drivers for XP, so copy them to floppy before
you start. You'll need them at the "F6" prompt when installing XP. Also, you
may want to check your BIOS Setup to ensure the SATA drive is set in higher boot
priority than the ATA drive.

To avoid conflicts during XP installation, disconnect the ATA drive and connect
the SATA drive. Go into the BIOS Setup to check boot order. Boot from the XP
installation CD and install XP. Shut down, reconnect the ATA drive, restart,
and transfer your data as necessary.

Do not be in a hurry to erase and reformat your old HD until you are SURE you
have all needed data, including stuff stored by Win, OE, and other apps in your
Documents & Settings folders.
 
You might also want to note that your ATA drive will still be a master on
the controller that currently services it, while your SATA drive will have
its own SATA controller (presumably on your mbd already). SATA doesn't have
master/slave configurations.

hth
 
Generally, yes it should be OK provided you're using XP SP2, which supports
SATA drives natively on most mobos.

To transfer the operating system to the new drive you'd need something like
Powerquest Drive Image, Ghost, or BartPE. Drive Image is arguably the best,
although it's no longer commercially available- you can find it on Ebay
though. V5 or later will do.

There is generally an option in the BIOS to determine whether IDE or SATA
drives boot first. If the computer won't start with the SATA drive connected
this is probably why.
 
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