OK, here's my situation. New machine, new everything. 320GB SATA HDD with vista on it. My old machine had two IDE format drives: a 120GB that had XP on it, along with other data, and a 200GB with nothing but data. I moved the 200 GB to the new machine a while ago with no problems (again, it's just music, movies, etc.). But now I'm trying to move the other IDE, the one with XP on it, and I'm having all kinds of issues. I tried leaving the drives in their Master/Slave config from the old PC. No good. I tried putting them both on slave and again with both on cable select. I always get one of two results: Either I get my normal vista desktop, but the thing says I must format the 120 GB, or I get the vista desktop, oddly with no background, and the whole thing runs slower than cold molasses, and doesn't recognize the 200GB that's been there for a while. I have a feeling the machine is having problems deciding with operating system to work from, but I need to get the 'other data' off the 120 before i format it and get rid of XP.

I've made sure the BIOS is only set up to boot from the 320SATA and nothing else, so that's not the issue. I just can't figure out the right combo of jumpers to let me read the 120 on the new machine, without it trying to run Vista and XP at the same time, or making me format the drive and losing all my data. I'd really appreciate any feedback i can get on this.

Update: Even though it wasn't causing any problems, i removed the 200GB HDD, just to get rid of the variable. I tried booting with just the 320 (Vista) and the 120(the one with XP), set for master and for slave, and again, i get a black Vista desktop, and the 120 shows up as a blank drive asking for format. i tried booting solely from the 120, but as expected it didn't work since the hardware config is completely different than what it was born with. now I'm totally out of ideas.

How was it jumpered and what IDE channel was it on? I agree, for right now, make sure the 200GB is out of the picture. Double check the boot settings, some bios's change the boot order once a new drive is installed.

I would try to boot with the 120GB jumpered as master, on the primary channel. If that doesn't work, you might want to try running some drive checkers on it.

I just bought a Raptor and I also have 3 other SATA drives and 1 IDE.

The 200GIG IDE and the Raptor will not work together. I tried all different configs and had to accept they are just not compatable.

Weird problems like the 200 IDE not appearing in post or bios

If I tried a clean install with both drives connected win xp would install initial files on Raptor then on the first reboot say it was a invalid disc. Had to disconnect the IDE drive (yes I checked the hdd boot up priority)

I'm not looking for help just suggesting it might just be that the two drives are compatable.

I tried booting with only the 120 GB, but because it was originally installed on another machine, it won't boot when it detects all different hardware.

johneng:

I know the drive types are compatible, though, as I've been running an IDE with a SATA for a while. My question is how do i get the data off the 120 while booting from Vista. I'm ok with formatting it afterwards to start anew, but I need the data from it first. Any other ideas?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough.

Try to boot from your normal SATA drive, with the IDE setup as I suggested. You said you tried to boot this way, but you never said how it was setup.

John didn't say you couldn't mix IDE and SATA. (If he did, I would have called him on it.) He said there are times that CERTAIN disks won't work together. While I find this hard to believe, I have no evidence to the contrary, hence my silence on the matter.

OK, i get it now. Yeah, I've tried booting from the SATA with the 120 set to master, and that's one of the instances where i get no desktop background and under My Computer, the 120 shows up as zero capacity and asks me to format it before using. I was trying to run down all the bases so I booted in every combination of settings I could think of with master/slave/CS, but none got me anywhere. And when i tried booting solely from the 120, it made it pastPOST and BIOS, but would just continuosly loop back to them as soon as it started reading the 120

Please read the advice given to you.

The drive is fine. I've checked it in my old computer and it still runs. As I said above, I knew it wouldn't be able to boot XP onto the new platform, since Microsoft doesn't allow that. I just wanted a way to leave the drive installed in the new one, and transfer the data to the new drive, without the two operating systems fighting for control. I decided to just re-install both of the old drives in the old PC transfer the data to the 200, transfer this to the new one, then delete the data from the 120.

I still don't know a way to use the 120 in the new system without deleting XP from it, which i don't want to do. Really I'm just looking for a way to tell the new PC to ignore the OS on the 120, and run Vista like normal

ok, we know that windows will see the 120 gig with vista booted, just as a blank drive...

check the bios settings (as to the type access), LBA, CHS, or LRG. make sure it matches what the old pc was set for.

Also, if you have go-back or other similar software on the 120 gig drive, that will actually change the partition type and cause windows to not be able to read it.

With Dual boot systems your supposted to install the oldest version first then the newer version, not the other way around. By doing it the way your trying your also have problems with the drivers from your old motherboard conflicting with XP. Also I think you need a boot loading program to choose which operating system you want it to boot from.