Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive

Posted by: furtive

Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 28/10/2005 07:44

My XP install is currently on an 80Gb ATA hard drive that isn't very well. I've just ordered a 120Gb SATA drive and when it arrives I want to move XP from one drive to the other.

What's the easiest way to do this? Use something like Partition Magic? Or is it not as easy as it should be?
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 28/10/2005 11:07

Well, I don't know how much help I'll be, but I did this very recently. My 80GB drive was too noisy, so I moved my OS to one of my SATA drives. Unfortunately for you, I had the use of my office's drive imager. I just hooked the two up and copied the info to the new drive.

So at least you know it's possible. Perhaps Ghost would do it? I don't think Partition Magic does this sort of thing...
Posted by: robricc

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 28/10/2005 11:44

Quote:
Perhaps Ghost would do it? I don't think Partition Magic does this sort of thing...

I think a combination of both would do it. You need Ghost (or I use Acronis True Image) to clone the drive, but you would need Partition Magic to expand the partition size to fill the new drive.
Posted by: Attack

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 28/10/2005 12:06

Your going to get the dreaded "inaccessible boot device blue screen".

If you install the SATA drivers before moving to the new drive you should be OK, but I would recommend reading this as it has other options you can use.

I myself used the repair install method when I moved from an MPX motherboard to an NForce3 board but that is because I boot from a 15k RPM SCSI drive.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 28/10/2005 12:13

Quote:
Your going to get the dreaded "inaccessible boot device blue screen".


A while ago, Mike Crowe wrote a piece for my website talking about this. This assumes that your new SATA controller is compatible with the "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller", though.
Posted by: drakino

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 29/10/2005 05:11

Grab a Linux Live CD that has a recent version of NTFS Resize. Use the CD to first clone the drives, using these instructions on dd. Then NTFS Resize (usually implemented via QTParted or another program) can stretch the 80 gigs out to 120.

The boot/driver issue is another situation that hopefully the other suggestions here will resolve.
Posted by: StigOE

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 29/10/2005 06:24

He should be able to do both the cloning and resizing with Ghost. When I changed out a 45Gb drive with a 250Gb drive, I used Ghost to clone the disk and resize it at the same time... This was also the boot disk in the machine.

Stig
Posted by: DeadFire

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 30/10/2005 22:58

Quote:
but you would need Partition Magic to expand the partition size to fill the new drive.

Acronis True Image can do this. I recently replaced my 250GB Maxtor with a 74GB WD Raptor. You are given the option to resize the partition being restored after you select the target drive. Of course, I had to install the SATA drivers before creating the new image. I made the 250GB a USB external.
Posted by: Shadows

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 01/11/2005 06:35

Hi there.
If you use Acronis True Image you need not anything else.
So plug new HDD as slave. Click Clone Hard Drive (on toolbar) and it will transfer everything what you want onto new one bigger HDD. You won't need to resize it as it will automatically detect and fill full size!
Recommend!
Posted by: furtive

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 01/11/2005 07:27

Thanks for the replies all.

I'll probably give True Image a go then, unless I just reinstall everything from scratch
Posted by: furtive

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 04/11/2005 13:40

Just looking at the Maxtor website and they have a tool that does exactly what I need:

MaxBlast

Quote:
MaxBlast 4 is a one-step, ATA/IDE hard drive installation utility.

MaxBlast 4 makes hard drive installations and upgrades hassle-free for novices and professionals alike by automatically identifying, partitioning, and formatting any IDE hard drive, making it data-ready in about one minute.

This version of MaxBlast is used on systems with already existing Windows installations to copy all your data to the new hard drive in order to use it as a boot drive, or additional storage drive.


It's just a shame that ebuyer delivered an 80Gb drive this morning, rather than the 200Gb one I had ordered
Posted by: furtive

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 05/11/2005 08:18

And the replacement 200Gb drive they sent me is DOA
Posted by: furtive

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 11/11/2005 07:04

Done! True Image worked great and I now have my XP install running on a shiny new 200Gb SATA Western Digital hard drive.
Posted by: loren

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 23/10/2006 03:50

SWEET. Thanks for the pointer to Acronis. Worked great when nothing else wanted to... Seagate tools, Maxtor tools, Ghost. I'm back up and running. Recommended!
Posted by: tahir

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 23/10/2006 10:58

I've just moved my Win2K maxchine from an 80Gb IDE to 250Gb SATA, I created a 40Gb partition for boot purposes, haven't done anything with the rest of the drive, is it safe to make 1 250Gb partition or will I get the 137GB limit confusing bootup?
Posted by: StigOE

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 23/10/2006 13:26

You need a registry setting to enable LBA48, otherwise you'll end up with a corrupted filesystem, unless you use normal Windows to partition and format, in which case you'll only get 137Gb. Don't remember which setting, but it has been mentioned here before, so you should be able to find it.

Edit: Ah, here they are: How to Enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows 2000 and How to Enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows XP

Stig
Posted by: tahir

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 23/10/2006 13:35

Quote:
You need a registry setting to enable LBA48, otherwise you'll end up with a corrupted filesystem, unless you use normal Windows to partition and format, in which case you'll only get 137Gb. Don't remember which setting, but it has been mentioned here before, so you should be able to find it.


Yeah I've already set EnableBigLBA to on, just worried that having a big boot drive might cause issues.

I could do without too many more drive letters, I have a lot of network drives plus I backup all my servers (via network) and my home media server (via HD caddy) to various drives on this machine.
Posted by: StigOE

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 23/10/2006 17:52

Quote:
Yeah I've already set EnableBigLBA to on, just worried that having a big boot drive might cause issues.

Shouldn't cause any problems. I've had a 250Gb drive as a boot drive in this machine for a couple of years without any problems.

Stig
Posted by: tahir

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 24/10/2006 07:42

Thanks, will repartition later today.
Posted by: peter

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 24/10/2006 10:45

Quote:
Shouldn't cause any problems. I've had a 250Gb drive as a boot drive in this machine for a couple of years without any problems.

That's not necessarily an answer to the question -- if there is a 128Gb restriction, but your bootloader happens to be in the first 128Gb of your partition, you'd never notice anything wrong. That is, until your kernel got a hotfix or something and was re-allocated somewhere else on the partition. It's still more reliable IMO to arrange for the boot partition to be entirely within the first 128Gb.

Peter
Posted by: tahir

Re: Move XP install from ATA to SATA drive - 24/10/2006 11:14

Quote:
It's still more reliable IMO to arrange for the boot partition to be entirely within the first 128Gb.


Actually I've just remembered, had a hotfix last year that deleted the Enable BigLBA entry in registry last year, maybe I'll just keep the 40Gb partition.