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IDE to SATA boot drive

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by rghigby 2 views

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I have an older IDE system in which I have installed a SATA II-150 PCI card to accept a SATA drive. I have cloned the IDE boot drive to the SATA drive but cannot get the system to boot from the SATA drive. Removing the IDE drive gives no boot (IDE drive not found). How can I get the SATA to be the new boot drive in Windows XP?

10 replies

by jamesmondtan

Is your motherboard support pci card bootup?
If i am correct, winxp will not regonise sata hardisk when you trying to fresh install it. But for your case, you have clone it. Now posible is motherboard bios create problem. Maybe i am outdated, but i did not know a motherboard can use pci to boot. Thanks

by hal 9000

The directions here

http://tinyurl.com/g4bv8

Now for the problem you are going to need to copy the PCI to SATA Drivers to the Root of a Floppy and when you see the first blue Windows XP Setup Screen press the [b]F6[/b] Key. When asked to insert the Floppy insert the floppy with the PCI to SATA Drivers and press enter but this driver needs to be in the root of the floppy not in a folder as the XP Installer will not be able to find the necessary drivers.

Once you have the PCI to SATA Drivers installed the Windows Installer should then see the SATA Drive and allow you to perform an In place install which will allow all your software to keep working but you'll loose any Service Packs and Patches that have been installed since the original Windows Installation and these will need to be applied again.

Col

by rghigby

I don't know how to copy drivers to the root of a floppy.

by hal 9000

You will need to copy the correct SATA drivers for the OS that you are using to a floppy without any Folders so when you open the floppy all you see are the driver file/s.

Normally you'll see these in Folders saying XP 32 Bit or XP 64 Bit if you are using the XP 32 Bit you need to copy the drivers from the XP 32 Bit folder to a blank floppy and then the Installer will see them and install the necessary drivers. It's very important here not to use folders when you copy the SATA Drivers to a Floppy as the Windows Installer is incapable of opening folders and reading the install drivers.

Col

by the_webninja9

Okay, I think Hal already answered this Question, but there is a couple things I want to just throw in here in case someone forgot to think about them.

#1 when you unplug your IDE Drive you are Getting NO DRIVE Error Messages.
This tells me that Your PCI Card might not be getting Detected by the System. And if your PCI Card is not getting Detected by the System, then it will not See the Drive.
Therefore it would be impossible to use a Drive unless you can get the System to detect the PCI Card.

In Order for that to happen you have to do like Hal suggested and use a Floppy to Install the Drivers for the PCI Card.

The Drivers should have come with the Card, unless you got the Card Used.
In That case go to the Website and Download the Drivers onto a Floppy Disk.

But What I would do (if I were you), is
using the IDE Drive as your main Boot Drive, Install the Drivers for the PCI Card on your IDE Harddrive FIRST. Then You will already have the Drivers before you Clone all the Software to the other Drive.

Because your Problem is you can't install your Drivers onto a Hard Drive that your Computer cannot See. So the only way to make your Computer See this PCI Card is to have the Drivers on this IDE Harddrive (So you can see the Sata Drive as a Slave) BEFORE you Clone the Data.
Then the PCI Card should automatically be detected on boot.

As far as using XP on Sata, it is not a Problem, I am doing it as we speak.
I am running XP on a Sata Hard Drive. (Although I am not using a PCI Card)
Another issue you might consider, I am not sure about your Bios, as one of the guys Mentioned.

The fact that you have to use a PCI card to use a Sata Drive tells me you are using a PC that is a little Old. So you might need to Check your Bios to see if it can detect the size of your Drive. I'm not sure how old your Bios is, but you might have to Flash the Bios, and if you have never done that before you will want to read about it a couple time before actually doing it.

If your Drive is Bigger than the Bios can detect it will still see the Drive, but not as big as it is suppose to. But it should still SEE the drive. So I don't really think that is the Problem, if you are having Problems just getting your Computer to SEE the Drive at all.

I would just try installing the Drivers on the IDE Drive First, then see if you can set up the Sata as a Slave. If you can do that, and you can See the Sata Drive as a Slave, then your PCI Card is Working. Then all you need to do is Clone the Software INCLUDING The PCI Drivers to the Sata Drive and you should be okay.

But if it were me, I wouldn't try to Clone the Data, I would rather do a Fresh Install and Install the PCI Drivers the way Hal Suggested in the Setup Process of XP. But to do that you will need the PCI Drivers on a Floppy Disk so when XP Setup asks you "To Install RAID Drivers press F6" you can Press F6 and insert your Floppy to Install your PCI Drivers so the Setup can see your Sata Drive.

Good Luck.

Mark*

by rghigby

The PCI card is new so I have the drivers on a CD (or transferred to a floppy as HAL suggested). The new SATA drive comes up fine using the IDE drive to boot (shows as F: with 140GB available of the nominal 150 GB drive). The first time I cloned C: to F: all of the files were present but the SATA drive was not recognized upon booting with the IDE disconnected. I cannot seem to access the setup on the machine with F6 or with F10 (indicated onscreen during boot).

by the_webninja9

Usually different Motherboards use different F keys to enter the Setup Menu.
I am using Intel Boards and they mostly use F2 to enter Setup.
Try F2 then Look under the Boot Sequence Menu and see if you can select the Sata Drive as your Boot Drive after the CD rom.
That might help.
You should be able to see your Sata Drive in the Cmos Setup menu. If you can't then you will not be able to configure it as the Primary Boot Drive. I'm not sure if Flashing the Bios would correct this Problem or not. But a Combination of an Upgraded Bios AND New Upgraded Motherboard Drivers Might Solve the Problem.

If you already bought a Sata Drive and you really want to use it as your Primary Drive. If you are having too many Problems using this Motherboard, it might be a wise investment for you to just buy a New Motherboard and CPU Chip. Because I am guessing that the reason you are insistant upon using the Sata drive is not only for Space, but for the Extra Speed of the Data transfer of the Sata Drive.

One thing you might want to Consider is if your Motherboard does not have a Sata Connection on it. Chances are it is so Old your Data Transfer on your Front Side Bus (being around 200Mhz or 400Mhz) might defeat the whole Purpose of beating your brains out trying to use this old Motherboard to try to take advantage of a Faster Sata Drive.

I would suggest going to:
http://www.evertek.com/
and checking out what they have that might be more suitable for your needs.
I mean if you already went the Distance to Purchase XP and the Sata Drive, it doesn't make much sense to continue using the older Motherboard and Chip. I think you can find Motherboard and Chip Combos on Evertek pretty reasonably priced. And the Cool thing about Evertek is they also offer a lot of lower priced Refurbished parts which can really help you out in a situation like you have where you are trying to pinch every penny.

But in the Long run I have found it is better to go with New Equipment, rather than to just continue trying to make old stuff work. You will feel much more satisfied in the long run if you get some newer stuff. Believe me!

by rghigby

The boot drive will remain the IDE "C:" drive and cannot be changed to the SATA PCI drive. This keeps the PCI drivers on the IDE drive and enables the SATA drive. XP can be deleted from the IDE drive and installed on the SATA drive (with all other .exe programs) to allow faster operation. Copying the files easily will require a cloning program (which I have). Correct?

by hal 9000

You can use the SATA Drive to load Windows onto but the IDE Drive will always be the Default Boot Drive to the computer.

While you can clone the Drive and copy everything to the SATA Drive it may not necessarily work as there will always be some files copied to the IDE Drive that point the computer where to look for a Boot Drive.

So while you can clone the IDE to SATA you'll still need to perform an In-place Install on the SATA Drive with a formated blank IDE Drive or at least no Windows Folder on it. You can clone the IDE Drive over and then use something like Boot & Nuke to delete the contents of the IDE Drive completely as it writes zero's to every sector of the drive it's available here for download

http://tinyurl.com/4rfur

You can then format the IDE drive with the XP Installer or a Windows 98 Floppy by running FDISK and Format C: that will give you a FAT 32 Partition that can be converted to a NTFS Partition after XP is installed onto the SATA HDD or you can have it formatted to a NTFS Partition if you chose to use the Windows XP Installer though you'll have to kill off the install process to prevent the install file being written to the IDE Drive and start it up again which is no problems and this time use the Floppy with the Drivers on it so that the Installer can see the SATA Drive to install to.

Then you can chose to do an In-place Install of XP which will rewrite all the correct settings to the system and allow it to boot off the SATA Drive and retain the IDE for whatever you want to use it for. the directions for an In Place Install are listed here

http://tinyurl.com/g4bv8

Though I must warn you that once you do an In Place Install every Service Pack and Patch which was not on the original install will be removed and need reapplying again.

Col

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