need help with sata hard drive

[busa4]

hello all. i just built a computer with a 160g sata hard drive. i didnt want to lose all my info from my previous computer so i removed the 80g ide hard drive and put it in this computer. i want to transfer everything from the ide hard drive to the sata hard drive and then get rid of the ide hard drive. i dont have the slightest idea how to do this. my ide hard drive is running very slow and i am ready to get rid of it.

[Vybuni]

I'm assuming you have windows freshly installed on your 160GB drive. If not, then install it.

You need to connect your 80 gig drive as a slave (using jumpers) or you can change the hard drive boot priority in the BIOS so the SATA is first (if you have the option to). Either way, the computer should boot from the 160 gig drive. Once it boots and loads Windows, just copy whatever files you need. It may take a while, depending on how much you need to transfer.

[eyeCpc]

Wrong there! A sata drive doesn't use jumper settings since it runs a totally different bus. The sata port the drive is plugged into decides whether it is a primary master/slave or secondary master/slave.

Before adding the 80gb ide in to copy files from it you will Windows installed on the 160gb sata model since the Windows installer will otherwise look for the first hard drive on the system. Despite seeing Windows on the sata the boot files will likely end up on the 80gb ide. The ide overrides sata by default.

For data rescue you can later slave the 80gb to the optical drive if there is only one ide channel on the board there. Windows may then have to install it as a new hardware in order to load drivers and be able to access it. Let Windows perform the auto search through it's own driver base.

[carnageX]

Or..instead of doing a fresh install of windows and having to manually put everything back on.. get a Ghost bootdisk, and transfer from the 80GB to the 160GB. I've done this a couple times, and it's worked perfectly. It transfers everything, including the MBR. Then you can just format the 80GB one, and use it as like a data drive.

Edit: before copying, make sure your IDE is set to Slave jumper, and you'll have to boot off of a Ghost bootdisk. I'd reccommend trying to find a Ghost 2003 edition, because it's the easiest to do. Just boot off of the disc you make, and do Local > Disk to Disk > and select the source drive (make sure you select the right one..the only way you'll be able to tell is by looking at the size of the HDD), then select the destination drive. For me... it took me about an hour to copy 50GB of data from an 80GB IDE drive to a 320GB SATA drive.

[SHAWN]

Assume Windows is installed on the 160 SATA. Insert the IDE drive on a channel alone and make sure its set as a master. Turn on your PC and go into your bios. Configure the 160SATA as the primary boot HDD. Boot into Windows. Open MY Computer and you should see the 80G drive. Migrate your data, shutdown and remove.

Issue resolved.

[eyeCpc]

Originally Posted by SHAWN

Turn on your PC and go into your bios. Configure the 160SATA as the primary boot HDD. Boot into Windows. Open MY Computer and you should see the 80G drive. Migrate your data, shutdown and remove.

Issue resolved.

That was part you had correct unless Windows sees the drive as a new hardware from being moved into the case after Windows has been installed. It then has to recognise the existing partition and data on it in order to see it as a logical drive.

An ide hard drive doesn't have to be masted on any cable by itself. It can easily be set as slave to the optical drive already installed and be accessible once seen as a logical drive for retrieving files even entire folders with copy and paste operations betweein the two drives.

As far as drive cloning that only works on identical systems as well as identical same sized drives. Windows has it's own unique hardware profiling seen in XP and more rigid in Vista. In Vista without a clean install on a new system you will see the "you may have a counterfeit copy of Windows" message where you are then not activated. Cloning is mainly seen in businesses with at least a small business or corporate license since they will have several identical systems.

[Vybuni]

The HDD should be on a separate IDE channel from the optical drive. A HDD slaved to an optical drive can sometimes cause problems.

As long as there are no problems with the partition or drive, Windows will have no trouble recognizing it. Set up correctly, it will show up in "My Computer."

As a sidenote, make sure you understand what is being said before correcting someone, eyeCpc. I suggested setting the 80gig IDE drive as a slave using jumpers on its own channel. I suggest slaving it so that changing the boot order in the BIOS isn't necessary. Windows won't boot from a slave drive.

[eyeCpc]

Originally Posted by Vybuni

The HDD should be on a separate IDE channel from the optical drive. A HDD slaved to an optical drive can sometimes cause problems.

As long as there are no problems with the partition or drive, Windows will have no trouble recognizing it. Set up correctly, it will show up in "My Computer."

As a sidenote, make sure you understand what is being said before correcting someone, eyeCpc. I suggested setting the 80gig IDE drive as a slave using jumpers on its own channel. I suggest slaving it so that changing the boot order in the BIOS isn't necessary. Windows won't boot from a slave drive.

For one you can't slave an ide drive to a sata drive. On a board with only one ide channel like most newer boards now seen you would generally have at least one cd or dvd optical there unless you went with a sata model instead.

With only one ide channel available and an ide optical drive already seen there it's a little impossible to set the drive up as a slave on another channel. If the ide drive was taken out of a prebuilt system it will likely not have any jumper to set since most prebuilds have their drives set to cable select by default by simply eliminating the jumper.

[carnageX]

As far as drive cloning that only works on identical systems as well as identical same sized drives. Windows has it's own unique hardware profiling seen in XP and more rigid in Vista. In Vista without a clean install on a new system you will see the "you may have a counterfeit copy of Windows" message where you are then not activated. Cloning is mainly seen in businesses with at least a small business or corporate license since they will have several identical systems.

If it's an OEM from like Dell or HP and you're trying to put it into a computer w/ a new mobo, then no it won't work. But different sized drives...yes it will. I just said in my previous post that I went from an 80GB IDE to a 320GB SATA without any hitch. And when I built my new computer, I transfered back to the 80GB, then installed my new OS on the 320GB. Both time cloning worked perfectly. It was on the same system, however, so I did not have to reactivate anything. And cloning isn't used in just businesses... I'm sure quite a few people on here do it, and I know my brother does it, and so do I.

[eyeCpc]

Upon simply replacing a board on a new build here with both XP and Vista alike with the exact same make and model XP had to be reinstalled completely with the activation prompts seen. A direct call to MS saw Vista reactivated.

The question asked however is how to see data saved from an old drive not cloning Windows from one size and type to another. I easily slaved a 120gb ide drive to a cd burner in order to copy and paste files and folders onto a much larger 500gb sata drive for data storage when about to build new again. The 120gb then ended up being loaned out until the owner of the other system finally gets around to installing Windows fresh on the 200gb sata drive there.