Buying an SATA HDD to make my Root HDD, Need Guide

[dinoX]

My current setup is 2 80 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM ATA100 HDD's with the 8 MB Buffer.

What I want to do is get the new 36 GB Western Digital 10,000 RPM SATA HDD with 8 MB Buffer and make that drive my root drive.

But my question is - can I do so without having to do a reinstall of my system, or is a reinstall inevitable or more recommended? As I didn't install with a SATA as the root HDD, how hard will this be?

Any and all suggestions are definitly welcome. I was going to just do a reinstall, but the only thing I don't like about that is it is such a pain in the butt to do.

dinoX aka BlackDog

 

[dinoX]

*bump*

I guess nobody knows? Suppose I'll just do a reinstall. :-\

dinoX aka BlackDog

 

[tabytha77]

you should be able to copy all the files to the Raptor, as long as you copy the hidden files as well. Though I would recommend doing a fresh install. It's always a good thing.

 

[dinoX]

yeah, a fresh install is what i was going to do, but I was just seeing if I had any other options.

dinoX aka BlackDog

 

[DOOM]

You can try doing a disk-to-disk image copy using a tool like Norton's Ghost. If you're curious, I might be able to provide more *ahem* information on that.

-DOOM
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<pre>MOV AX,0040
MOV DS,AX
MOV WORD PTR [0072],1234
CLI
JMP FFFF:0000</pre><p>

 

[jim552]

Depending on your motherboard, you should be able to just "ghost" that data across. (or some other disk utility.)

You will want to make sure the SATA drive is visible under Windows first. That way you know that Windows hard the drivers installed properly for the SATA controller. (Usualy not a problem/concern, but could be.)

I have "NEVER" had a problem using "Ghost" to copy system partitions, although I have had one problem copying a larger data partition to a slightly smaller data partition on a SATA drive.

I use "Ghost" often, and it generally works pretty good. Sometimes you have to use the Command line switches to get this to work out though.

NOTE: I have only used "Ghost" with DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Linux. I HAVE NOT USED GHOST WITH WINDOWS XP. NO IDEA WHAT WILL HAPPEN THERE.