Can I move over from PATA to SATA without reinstalling ?

I don't think that I understand your question.

Normally, of you want RAID/SATA function in Windows XP, you have to press F6 during install to install 3rd party drivers via floppy/CD (ie. Promise etc.).

I didn't do this for my current installations, therefore there is no "RAID/SCSI" listed in Device Manager.

I want to move these windows partitions over to new SATA drives - the only way I can do this (I think) is to somehow install the RAID/SATA drivers into these Windows XP partitions.

However, the more I read around this problem the more I think it is not going to be possible...

Maybe someone can put me out of my misery ?

where is your OS located?

if it's on one of the PATA disks then you can't just copy it on to a SATA disk and hope it works anyway, you need to do a clean install then copy your data across

as far as promise raid drivers go, some motherboards have an "IDE/RAID mode" selection in the bios which when set to "IDE" mode, disables the raid functionality, but makes the SATA drives look like normal IDE drives to an OS (meaning you don't need the SATA/RAID drivers)

Thanks

I use a Boot/HD low level management software (BootItNG) which allows copying and pasting of OS partitions around harddrives, even the boot OS.

This has worked fine before when moving over to new HDs so I don't think a SATA HD would be any different.

It's the Promise RAID/SATA drivers I'm concerned about - I don't think you can just install them into a pre-installed XP OS...has to be done with F6 on fresh install.

If this is the case then I'm going to have to do fresh isntall anyway...a real PITA because these partitions took ages to setup.

Actually you can istall the drivers in your existing XP installation. Use Add new hardware, and choose to browse to the location of the installation file. There should be an INF file.

Also you CAN copy a boot partition to another disk and it will boot if this parition is NTFS. But the issue is how to copy this boot parition while it is running. You can use a CD like UBCD4WIN to boot off of it and copy the C drive from 1 drive to another and it will boot. Natureally i'm supposing that u installed the drivers before.

Also if you dont install the drivers first, you can boot off you XP CD and choose to do a repair. At that moment you can press F6.

Anyhow, no need to reinstall anything

I wish you'd say what the motherboard is. Promise doesn't make its own chips for outboard controllers but use Sil etc. If you're talking about an onboard controller then the primary Sata ports will not need any type of driver, other than those included in the Windows driver cache, to work in IDE mode. Manufacturers' drivers are only neeeded for Raid and for Enhanced functionality on non-Intel chipsets.

Hi swayzak,

Windows xp does not work if copied from one hard disk to another, so you'll anyway have to reinstall xp.

sorry. i took some time posting and i see someone has already done the needful.  

You won't need to hit F6 for a SATA install unless you're using a PCI controller card. F6 is usually only for RAID. If your board has SATA already, then just install without F6.

Sorry - Asus P4PE.

The manual is not very clear about using SATA just as replacement for PATA (not as RAID array).

The drivers are "RAID/SATA" so I thought the drivers are required as the Promise chip controls both (?).

thanks - but it does work if using partitioning utility (like BootItNG)... I've done it many times. Obviously if there are too many hardware changes it becomes a problem, but simply pasting over to a new HD (whilst keeping the same cpu etc.) is fine.

Thanks

Yes - I just discovered that I had to enable RAID/SATA controller in BIOS. Then each partitition detected the new hardware and I installed the latest Promise 376 Fasttrack driver.

I now get a quick POST message telling me that no Promise RAID/SATA device was detected (obviously, because I haven't got any yet !) and an exclaimation mark by a SCSI icon in Device Manager.

Be interested to see now whether I do actually need this drivers installed to detect simple SATA drives, or like others have said, Windows should just detect them anyway...

swayzak