Ide xp image to sata does not work

[soguzar]

i ghosted an ide xp image to a sata HD.
I am looking for a solution of making this sata HD boot the copied xp.
Symantec says: this is not possible.
"Do not clone a computer that uses an IDE hard disk to a computer that uses a SCSI hard disk."
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/on-technology.nsf/docid/1999070716282425

best wishes

 

[gem5472]

I'm having the same issue. I installed the SATA drive and booted from the IDE drive as normal. Windows recognized the SATA drive, installed the drivers, and I was able to partition the SATA. I created a primary partition and marked it as "Active". I ghosted the image from the boot partition to the new active partition on the SATA drive and disconnected the IDE drive but I get "Error loading OS". I don't know why this doesn't work. The image has the SATA drivers installed. Maybe someone can help us both.

 

[gem5472]

Here is what the Symantec site says:

When you clone an image of a Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista computer that has one type of drive to a computer that has a different type drive, the computer may have problems accessing the drive after cloning. That is, Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista are dependent upon drivers for the appropriate drive type, and switching drive types may cause you to lose access to the drive on the destination computer.

That being said, I thought that since the system recognized the drive before I created the image, I wouldn't have this problem. It says "may have problems...", which is a little different than "won't work". I have hope that someone will be able to provide an easy answer.

 

[Paperdoc]

Windows MUST have a driver to access any device, and this includes hard drives. At the time of installing it, Windows has a few VERY common device drivers built in and can use them for the installation and for access to those devices later when you boot from them. Among these are IDE drives, ATAPI devices (optical drives), floppy drives, and a few others. Up to Win XP, it did NOT have any built-in drivers for SATA devices so it could not use them without having those drivers provided. The classic way for this was a technique Windows has had for years - you loaded the drivers from a floppy disk early in the Install process and it "built them into" the installation so they COULD be used at all times, even for booting up. But in your case with an original installation to an IDE device, there was no need for that and so I'm sure it was not done. That installati0on cannot handle a SATA boot device.

There is a way around this with most modern mobos, however. To avoid having to deal with this process and the need for a floppy drive, they made a special feature in the BIOS for SATA units. When you configure the SATA ports in the BIOS Setup screens, there is a mode setting. Options often include IDE (or PATA) Emulation, native SATA, AHCI, or RAID0. If you choose the IDE Emulation mode, the mobo intervenes and makes the actual SATA drive appear to Windows to be a plain old IDE drive it understands, and it all just works! In your case you need to set this mode for your drive, and then you also need to ensure the the Boot Priority Sequence in BIOS is set to use this new drive, and not try the old one. With those changes made, Save and Exit from Setup and the machine ought to boot properly from the new drive.

 

[jitpublisher]

Also try Acronis True Image.
There is a free download that works for like 30 days, which is long enough to mirror your OS to another drive. Acronis is the bomb for mirroring and it also can be configured to make backups. It is the fastest and easiest to use mirroring/backup software I have ever used, and it simply works. I have used it to mirror my OS partition from RAID arrays to single drives, and back to RAID arrays again, without a hitch.

 

[gem5472]

Thanks for the responses. I don't believe my mobo will handle IDE emulation. I have looked at every SATA reference ten times and it isn't an option, I'm afraid. It is a little over 5 years old. At any rate, I thought that once I had the SATA drive installed and working in the original image, the drivers were loaded in Windows. I can see it in device manager. Are you saying that despite this, there is a different driver that is required to allow it to boot? Thanks again.

 

[Paperdoc]

No, it's not different, it's in the order of loading things. It's a Catch-22 situation: in order to load from a HDD, Windows must have the driver for that device loaded first, but the driver it needs is on the HDD! If you are booting from an IDE device, all Windows installations load the IDE device driver at the very beginning from key files in the Windows system, and then it can load everything else. In the process it also will load up the drivers needed for SATA devices if you have "installed" those in Windows, and then the SATA devices also become usable.

BUT, if you are trying to boot from a SATA device, a standard installation of Windows does NOT have those SATA drivers built into the basic files Windows gets first, so it can't load anything from the SATA drive. As I said, one solution is to let the mobo make the SATA drive appear to be IDE, and then Windows has a driver for that.

Exactly what mobo do you have? With that info we could look at its manual and see if this IDE Emulation mode does exist in it somewhere - many mobo's have had it for several years.

Even if you cannot get IDE Emulation to work for you there are other ways around this:
1. You MAY have the means (a Windows Install Disk and a floppy drive) to re-install Windows to the SATA drive so that it DOES include a SATA device driver to make the HDD bootable.
2. I understand that there is an arcane procedure requiring several edits to the Windows Registry that allows you to reconfigure your Windows installation to be able to find, load and use the SATA device drivers so you can boot from a SATA drive. You could try to find these instructions on the 'net.
3. I understand also that there always has been a procedure in which, at some point in the normal Windows boot sequence, you can push a Function key to allow you to load the required driver(s) from a floppy disk as a first step, and this allows you to use and boot from your SATA drive. The only problem is, this only works for this start-up, and must be repeated every time you boot. So you need a floppy drive permanently installed in your machine, and a floppy disk with drivers ion it in the drive. You also really ought to keep a couple of spare copies of that floppy disk, in case it gets worn out.

 

[gem5472]

The motherboard is a Biostar K8HNA Grand. I think I'll just re-install Windows. I was just hoping for a short-cut. Thanks for your help - you are an amazing resource!

 

[Paperdoc]

Hmmm! I looked through the Biostar website listing of stuff for that mobo, and I see what you mean. There is no reference to any SATA port mode settings or IDE emulation. Moreover, I can't figure put where it has the driver(s) required to use the SATA device on the port, although there MUST be some - otherwise Windows could not use it. I'm thinking that you will need that driver on a floppy disk in order to re-install Win XP to boot from the SATA drive. Since the SATA port appears to have been implemented via a bridge chip from the IDE system, maybe the driver is included in the IDE driver package. Or, maybe it is on a CD that came with your mobo - there is a reference to such a disk in the manual.

 

[jitpublisher]

I found something in the knowledge base for you board that may help....
http://www.biostar-usa.com/knowledgespec.asp?faqid=99973
I'll keep digging and see if I can come up with anything else.

 

[gem5472]

So, this has been a real challenge, to say the least. I was hoping to short-cut the installation of Windows XP on a new hard drive. The 80 gig that is in there is probably 5 years old and to rely on it for very long would be pushing it. Anyway, I've learned a lot about migrating to SATA from IDE, for what that's worth. I did try to do a clean install of XP, and I thought I was prepared. I have a USB floppy drive that I have used on two other installs - a 4 year old Compaq laptop and a new HP slimline. But as luck would have it, the system would not recognize the floppy during install. Oh, it recognizes it fine if I try booting from it, and of course when Windows is up and running there is no problem. Just during the darned install when it calls for the floppy to load the drivers. Nothing. It doesn't even seek. Unfortunately, I don't have any blank media with me or I would have tried creating a slipstream image and using it. I found that to be pretty interesting and would like to try it at some point.

After all of this, I have some questions regarding images, drivers, etc. Biostar mb has the nvidia nforce3 chipset. The HP slimline that I have has a newer version - Nvidia nforce430. When re-imaging the HP, I downloaded drivers from the nvidia website for nforce520. They didn't list anything specific for the 430. So, I assume that the newer drivers are backwards compatible, and would be compatible with the nforce3 on the Biostar. If that is the case, I should be able to capture an image from the HP, which has a SATA drive, and load it on the Biostar machine. Does that sound like it will work? The reason I think it will is because when I look for drivers for the nforce3, it brings me to the same screen that I went to for the 430 and wound up with the 520 drivers. Of course, I could just try it and see if it works, but I am dealing with a distance issue - the HP and the Biostar machines are 300 miles apart. I'd be interested and grateful for your thoughts. Thanks - GEM

 

[soguzar]

I gived up trying to ghosting the image. I have just set up a new win7 and programs(30 GB) in 5 hours.

My experiences and future remarks:

1. http://www.vernalex.com/guides/sysprep/index.shtml is an excellent reference but changing hal (which is step one) made my system unbootable!!! Do not change hal.

2. http://blog.hishamrana.com/2006/02/22/how-to-image-windows-xp-with-ghost-and-sysprep/1 is good and has many discussions.

3. sysprep is usable only under its assumptions read its assumptions in its manual or from microsoft support.

4. Everybody in the web says: True image is best. But ı could not use it under dos uisng hiren cd.

5. I tried even sysprep with only massstorage choice, but it did not work: black screen and hardare profile error. fixmbr, fixboot, ghost walker din not solve the problem. Even they did not solved previous problems.

6. suggestion: try ghosting if it not works, try to set up new system.

7. suggestion 2: i have not tried bu this may be solution as explainded in http://www.vernalex.com/guides/sysprep/index.shtml

uninstall all drivers + prepare sysprep with including all drivers for destination computer + ghost image