copy windows from PATA to SATA

Associate
Joined
6 Feb 2004
Posts
812
Hi!
I'm going to migrate my windows XP install to a new hard drive. I have a freeware prog for doing that: http://www.bootitng.com/copywipe.html. So that part is sorted.

The problem I have is I'd like to go from PATA to SATA. The copy of Windows in question has SATA drivers that were installed after installing windows since the drive is PATA.

So I'm wondering will Windows XP pro be able to use those SATA drivers when it's booting up on the new SATA drive? I don't know if there's any technical difference between SATA drivers installed during windows-install (the F6 thing) and SATA drivers installed later.

EDIT: I haven't bought the HD yet and I'll settle for PATA if it won't work. I just don't want to buy the SATA and then be forced to reinstall everything.

Thanks!
Tom
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
Joined
6 Feb 2004
Posts
812
crashuk said:
just delete/ uninstall them in hardware profile
I think you may have mistinterpreted. I don't want to remove the SATA drivers, because I'd like to migrate to SATA without having to reinstall windows (I have a copy prog for doing that). Just wondering will the SATA drivers I installed work during boot-up like they do when you install them with the "tap F6" procedure.

EDIT: I'm migrating to a new (larger) HD regardless... I'd just prefer SATA if that's possible when the old HD is PATA.

Thanks for help!
Tom
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
74
Location
London, UK
If you've installed the SATA drivers on your current IDE hard drive, then image the IDE drive Windows installation to the SATA drive, the SATA drive should boot up fine when you later remove the IDE drive (or set the SATA drive as your boot drive in the BIOS set-up).

I had a similar problem a few years ago when I got a new mobo with SATA channels but only had IDE drives. I wanted to use the IDE channels for my optical drives with a SATA channel for the HD. I got a SATA-->IDE adapter but of course once installed this wouldn't boot even though I'd set the the BIOS correctly. So, I changed back to IDE operation and loaded the SATA drivers under Windows. Then I reconnected the drive for SATA operation via the adapter and it booted fine.

You probably know this but after imaging make sure you set the boot partition on the SATA drive to "Active" (in Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management) before finally booting from it. As mentioned earlier you'll need to set the BIOS to boot from this drive. You'll probably have to reassign drive letters in Drive Management as well after booting.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
6 Feb 2004
Posts
812
Thanks! I'm really counting on being able to migrate to the new drive without having to reinstall AND I'd really prefer that the new drive is SATA, so that's good news.

I figured windows should be flexible enough during boot-up to change to the SATA driver previously installed through the GUI, but if it didn't, then I'd be faced with having to return the perfectly healthy SATA HD or reinstall everything... really don't want to do either.

Thanks!
Tom
 
Back
Top Bottom