Another FAST WORKING SOLUTION IDE Boot to SATA Boot for Windows XP users.
I built a new machine, that worked perfectly with my original IDE drives-- then tried to install a new SATA 500GB drive.
Failure on many accounts-- even though I cloned the drive, it wouldn't boot and I got the dreaded "No DRIVE RECOGNIZED (or something similar) error message, and no boot.
You will need a copy of Acronis 11 True Image Home. $50 or cheaper with discount, or borrow a copy. Whatever, just get a copy of this somehow. You will no longer be using Norton Ghost, nor will you want to any more. (I've used Ghost 2003 since 2003, but using it with SATA drives is a nightmare at the very least. Acronis works, and works better.
1) Machine wouldn't recognize the SATA drive for booting up, even after cloning the old drive to the new SATA with Acronis- originally. There are a few extra steps that I need to do-- and now you don't have to guess what they are for yourself, just keep reading.....
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DITCH GHOST 2003 (and maybe later versions, obviously you're reading this, so if you are trying to clone with Ghost and it's driving you batty, ditch it.
A) Ghost 2003 is virtually useless with SATA drives INCLUDING having a SATA CD-RW plugged in- it crashes the system, and then you can't reboot because Ghost makes a Virtual Partition on your original IDE drive, and the VP partition which becomes the new "active" drive--- and it won't work because you've got one or more SATA drives connected....a hopeless dead end.
If you've been a loyal fan of Ghost 2003, and you've added SATA drives, time to move on- Ghost 2003 will not work reliably with SATA, although some people are lucky and can manage it- most will not. Newer versions of Ghost may work, but I've blown off Ghost entirely and found something that works the first time, easier, and that's that.
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FIX YOUR ORIGINAL IDE DRIVE'S ABILITY TO BOOT UP
First, once Ghost fails and you can't even re-boot into your original IDE drive, you have to fix that first. Here's what I did-- although some of you may not have a spare or friend's machine to do this-- I have a laptop that I used for this purpose...
B) If you can no longer boot up your original IDE drive (almost a certanty), take out the IDE drive, stick it in a portable USB drive case, plug into another computer, and then look at the drive in Administrative Tools from Control Panel, i.e. go to Control Panel/Admin. Tools/Disk Management (you know) and examine the drive.
In Admin. Tools, right after your C Drive boot partition you will see two new blocks- a small VP (virtual Partition) and another mysterious larger partition the same size as your C Drive.
CAREFULLY NOW- select the small VP partition (make sure it's highlighted) and DELETE IT. This will delete both this VP and the mystery partition, but leave your original C Drive Boot Partition Intact.
THEN (and don't forget this) MARK THE ORIGINAL C DRIVE ACTIVE. This tells your machine "this is the boot drive".
This will restore the drive back to it's pre Ghost 2003 FkUp.
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ENABLE SATA DRIVES IN BIOS/CMOS
2) You may not have SATA devices recognized in your Bios CMOS.
Another problem I had, but then, I installed a new motherboard as well, was that it would not recognize the SATA CD drive as well when booting up- i.e., I could not boot from a CD like Windows Installation Disc, and you need that to work...
A) Go into CMOS , probably Integrated Peripherals, and make sure you enable the SATA Port Native Mode. I left the SATA AHCI Modi disabled. This will allow you to boot from a CD disc as well as recognize your new SATA drive.
B) When you set up your Bios/CMOS properly, you can look in Standard DMOS settings, and you should be able to see all of your drives, both IDE and SATA drives connected.. You shouldn't need to install and additional 3rd party SATA drivers to do this, by now (2008) motherboards and bios' should integrate SATA drives without extra work.
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MAKE YOUR NEW SATA DRIVE BOOTABLE INTO WINDOWS
3) Okay, now that you've made all SATA drives accessible and fixed your original IDE boot up drive, now you must make your new SATA drive bootable into Windows.
I don't know about you, but I still use Windows XP. I've seen Vista, and I don't want it or need it. XP works better and everything works with XP. Vista is a deformed baby, and avoid at all costs. If you have it and don't know any better, "downgrade" to XP if you can, and if your new computer hardware will have XP drivers- check with your manufacturer first.
So, This may or may not work with Vista.... give it a shot.
In order to make your new SATA drive boot, you must first install Windows into the drive, otherwise you will not be able to bootup into the drive, as your IDE boot up instructions are different than SATA boot up instructions-- so just cloning the drive alone won't work--- at least I don't think it will per my previous experiences cloning different drives. Even two different brands of drives won't work without other procedures.. so here we go...
A) So-- unplug your IDE drive, insert a Windows XP Installation disc into your CD/DVD drive and do a new installation of XP (or maybe Vista) onto your new SATA drive. This will take about 40 minutes, mostly of you sitting on your hands.
Take the dogs for a walk, take a nap, whatever.
After you've got a basic working install of Windows on your new drive (and remember, you can't get this unless correct SATA options are chosen in the Bios/CMOS) then shut off the machine, and plug your original IDE drive back in.
B) IMPORTANT>>>>Select BOOT UP MENU when you turn your machine back on, so you boot up into your original IDE boot drive partition not your new SATA drive Windows installation.
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CLONING THE DRIVE FROM OLD IDE TO NEW SATA
Acquire Acronis 11 True Image Home. Beg Borrow or Steal. It's only $50 and if you've never paid for software you know how to get it, and you can download a trial version, or just fork out the $50, it's well worth it and one bit of software you will not be able to live without forward on anyway.
A) Using Acronis 11, use the CLONE tool, and Clone your old IDE Drive to your new SATA drive. By this, I mean duplicate the entire hard drive, and each partition.
Acronis will allow you to custom size your new drives partitions, as it is likely a bigger drive, or at least different, from your original drive.
During a CLONE DRIVE procedure, like Ghost 2003, Acronis 11 True Image will shut down the machine, and operate outside of Windows, and then reboot after the procedure is done.
As I set up the procedure, apparently I set it up to erase the original drive (oops), and there is certainly a way to prevent this. Just pay attention as you are setting up your clone. For me it didn't matter, because the new cloned SATA drive worked perfectly the very first time.
Another option is to simply Backup and Restore just the boot partition, but I chose CLONE instead because since I was replacing the whole IDE drive, I needed to copy all of the other partitions as well. Acronis did this as part of the disc clone, and as I mentioned before, various options allow you to automatically resize for the new drive, or manually choose partition sizes as you clone.
Once the procedure is done, it automatically reboots into the new drive, adopting the original drive letters from your original IDE drive..... COOL!!!!
There you have it. I spent at least a day wrestling with this, and once I figured out all of the needed operations, it worked, and worked perfectly the first time.
You don't have to suffer like I did, and you can upgrade to bigger, faster, less expensive SATA drives and keep your old IDE drives off shelf, unplugged, for backup security for when lightning strikes and burns up your entire machine.
If you haven't yet learned to keep all your system files and Windows file on a completely separate partition from your data files LEARN THIS NOW, it is a MUST!!!!>>>>>
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Neil Slade
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