need help installing sata hd

[bluzman32]

Hi everyone. I've never installed a harddrive before, so please be patient with me. I just bought a SATA harddrive (which my mobo has a connector for) but it is currently using IDE for the windows drive. I just want the new SATA drive to be storage in addition to the IDE.

So I found a 'guide' online to help me install it. I opened up Computer Management (windows XP) after connecting the cables and I saw my drive there. I formatted the new SATA drive (it took maybe 35 minutes which is way longer than anywhere I saw online) and put it as F. There were a few options which I simply clicked next to move on because I didnt know what they did. So I tried moving some files to the new harddrive and it seemed to work correctly (showed ~600gb of the 640gb). I restarted the computer, and the problems began. Windows would not boot up, it would ask for the original CD to be put into the drive (which I dont have with me). So I turned off the computer, and took out the SATA cable, and windows boots up fine. I repeat the process and it happens all over again.

I have no idea what to do now. Please help me.

 

[demon646]

You could bypass all the crazyness by putting it in a USB external enclosure... it's kind of a workaround, but it should work.

If you don't want to spend money, I'd suggest getting a real partitioning program like gdisk or something and re-partition it in dos or a test machine. <--all of that is prob Greek to someone who has never installed a HDD, but time and effort will probably 'cost' more than a $14 external USB enclosure

 

[ax0nist]

Just a guess, but isn't it possible your BIOS is set to boot from the new sata drive, causing it to have no OS?

Try going into BIOS and modify your boot settings, make sure your IDE drive with the OS is listed to boot before the other one.

 

[szwaba67]

I second axOnists response. Sometimes the bios will have a boot order like 1) "Floppy", 2) "CD", 3) "HDD" and then let you select only one drive as the HDD. If your new drive is set as the HDD then it won't boot.

 

[ax0nist]

To expand on szwaba, if it only has the option to boot from HDD (in the bootlist) and not specific ones, they are usually in a list nearby. I know that is how my intel board is.

 

[bluzman32]

wow thanks guys I just had to go into the BIOS and set my old IDE as the boot drive and it worked, awesome

 

[ax0nist]

Glad to hear.