Move XP from PATA to SATA drive

[cheerful]

What is the best way to move XP from a PATA drive to SATA drive?

My plan is to use repair installation. My main concern is the F6 floppy during XP CD bootup. Do I have to have a floppy? Will a CD or USB flash drive do?

Thanks!

 

[linney]

These threads discuss the F6 problem and offer possible solutions.

Error Message:Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in you
thread779-972802

Cannot boot / install XP on new PC
thread779-1147500

Drive manufacturers have free software to copy everything from an old hard drive to their newly purchased hard drive, have you investigated this possibility?

 

[cheerful]

Thanks for the link.

I am upgrading my PC: new mobo and CPU. Thinking about new HD SATA to replace PATA at the same time.

I can either go with one-step, meaning repair installation on SATA drive.

Or I can go with change mobo/cpu first and then copy HD. Will the copy work or do I still need to do repair installation?

 

[jurgen36]

With new Mobo and Cpu you will have to reinstall xp. You might get away with a repair install, but this is not for sure. Ghost the installation to the new drive, remove the old drive and try to start windows, probably will not work. Prepare a floppy with the sata drivers, they will come on the new mobo cd, start the installation hit f6 once it ask for it, insert the sata driver floppy and hope for the best. It is not certain that a repair installation will work about a 50% chance. A cd will not do, it only looks at the floppy drive.
Good luck

Jurgen

 

[cheerful]

I've finished the first step: swap the mobo/cpu on the old pata drive and did a repair installation. It finished fine.

Now the 2nd step. Any drive copying software that can recognize SATA drive?

Thanks!

 

[jurgen36]

Ghost will recognize it ok, if your bios recognizes it. But most likely after ghosting it across to the sata drive you will have to do another repair installation as the drive parameters are different and winxp does not like this.
Good luck


Jurgen

 

[cheerful]

Last time I did something similar is going into registry to change the drive letter just before the drive copy. a bit tricky. not sure if i want to try this one.

 

[wolluf]

Assuming you do have a floppy drive to supply SATA drivers on, then moving from PATA to SATA should be no big deal (I would have done the whole thing in one go - ghosted PATA drive to SATA in new machine config, then go for repair reinstall via F6). And you're not losing anything by trying - you can always do a clean install if it doesn't work.

btw - you can only supply SATA drivers on a floppy - only other way is to build an XP install CD with them incorporated (eg, see nlite)