Changing OS harddrives

[Gameros]

As my signature states, I have an older PC. Currently it has 2 IDE harddrives in it. I am trying to slowly upgrade my computer to lessen the balloon price of upgrading. My first order of business is to replace my harddrives with a new SATA drive. Since the SATA IIs are backward compatible with the original ones, I'll be able to use one till I upgrade the motherboard.

My problem is, how do I transfer my program files (specifially the OS and main programs) to the new harddrive? Can I just reinstall Windows to it (than what would happen with the old Windows installation?). Is there an easy way to transfer data (I doubt copy and paste will work)?

[ratNukit]

So you have a SATA capable mainboard at the moment?

Well if thats the case you just have to install the harddrive and install your OS to it and reinstall all the programms while using your old harddrive with the OS on it as a secondary to copy all the files.

Second option: If you install the OS to your now non OS harddrive and boot that, you could copy your primary HDD content to the new SATA and after that select the SATA as boot drive, now there should be all the OS and programm data on it. ( not 100% sure this works since I haven't tried that yet)

I'd recommend a completely new fresh install on the new harddrive.;)

[DMB2000uk]

The best way to do it is as ratNukit's first suggestion.

Trying to copy across installed files to a new OS won't play nice (as it will be missing key things like registry keys).

So hook up the SATA drive, install windows and all the programs you want, plug in the second older drive, copy all of your files from the old drive to the new SATA one, then unplug the old one and enjoy your new SATA drive.

Dan

[Gameros]

Thank you guys. I figured thats how I had to do it, but I wanted to make sure.

[DaddyRabbit]

Another option (but costs a bit) is Acronis TrueImage (the home version is cheap and downloadable at Newegg).

You can boot from the Acronis Rescue CD and image directly drive to drive (ensure the SATA drive can be seen from Windows first) and just remove the old drive and boot from the new. The advantage of this is that you will also have a good disater recovery backup solution as you can also image to DVD and always be able to restore to a "known state" in a half hour or so.

Acronis has saved my butt more times than I can count and if you can spare the change it's a worthy buy.

Do note however that switching or upgrading drives (and other hardware) is easy with Acronis but it probably will NOT work this way when upgrading the motherboard.

[Bio-Hazard]

There's a few free down loadable disk cloning programs online that work pretty well.

As a matter of fact I just cloned my wifes HD from a IDE to a SATA just like you're wanting to do and the system is working perfectly .............;)

I can't remember the name of it, but Google works real well. I'll try and find a link to the one I used for you though.

Here's the link to the one I used, I down loaded the free trial version, its just slower than the retail version.

http://www.pcdiskclone.com/?gclid=CLP-- ... FQod4XLWtw

PCDiskClone is a Linux LiveCD based boot CD that allows cloning of computer hard drives to backup data or
migrating system to another PC. It copies all data on
physical level with a full support of IDE, SATA, SCSI,
USB, Firewire Interfaces. Besides these compatabilites, PCDiskClone clones at a high speed of more than 7GB
per minute.

[Gameros]

I will give your PCDickClone sugestion a shot Bio-Hazard. I found a few programs online, but I am leery of using programs online without someone else saying they are good.

So thanks again all.

[Sporg]

giggle

I know, so immature...

[unfaithfulsfan]

Another option (but costs a bit) is Acronis TrueImage (the home version is cheap and downloadable at Newegg).

I can never get Acronis to image from IDE to SATA or vice versa. It only sees the first disk in the config. That would have been my thought too except for the problems I've had.

Jack