Ok, please forgive me if there is an incredibly easy answer to this I just don't know about. I just bought lots of shiny new components for a new build, my first in about 5 years. I plan on sticking with WIN XP Pro for the new machine, I had planned to just use my exsisting drive for the OS and the new one for additional storage. Here's the thing though, I would have sworn my old machine was running a SATA drive, but it's not, it's IDE. (I did not build it, was given to me by a friend a couple years back and I never had cause to check till now).
So, what I need to do is get the OS and selected other files off the old drive and onto the new when everything arrives. There is 4 years of stuff on the old drive, much of which I don't really need anymore so I figure I would like to only transfer the OS and the files I want over to the new drive. So what would be the best way to do this? Can I just install the old drive on the (single) IDE channel on the new MB, boot from that and somehow copy the needed files to the new drive (all the needed files for the OS) and then just reboot and set the new SATA drive as the boot drive? And if I can, how the heck would I do it? If not, how can I accomplish getting the OS off the old drive and onto the new without reinstalling win XP from scratch? (which would be tricky, since I have NO IDEA where my original WIN XP Pro disk are).
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

If you dont have a windows disk you are in a bad way. Just transferring the system files will cause you nothing but headaches if it works at all.
When windows installs it looks at all of you hardware and adjusts itself to that environment. If you just flat copy the old setup to your new rig it will be looking for all of the old hardware.