new sata hard drive and windows - a few questions

jonnyb

My old ide disk is now full, so I plan to get a new sata disk. I've read various threads with similar questions, but none that answer mine exactly.

I am hoping that I can just plug my new sata drive in and the motherboard will recognise it as a new drive. As it will be much quicker than the old ide drive, I would like to run my operating system from it - windows xp home, upgrade version.

Is ther any chance I can just copy the entire contents of my current ide disk to the sata disk and it will all work ? Or might I need a repair install for it to work ?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

[Deleted User]

Does your motherboard have a SATA controller on it, worth checking before you commit.

Most HDD manufacturers have tools on their websites to download and use to mirror the contents of the old drive onto the new one, so you can do it that way. Although, if you're changing drives you might as well cease the opportunity to do a clean install and get rid of the gunk that you'll have accumulated over the years..

BillScarab

Have you checked whether your motherboard actually supports SATA drives?

jonnyb

thanks for the replies so far.

Yes, the mboard supports sata - it has 2 connections for them, and was a recent purchase from ccl in bradford.

it's a WinFast 6150M2MA FAB2.0


regarding a clean install, would that cause me problems with windows registration ?

BillScarab

Shouldn't cause you a problem, just enter the prodcut key when you install it. It's possible you'll have to call Microsoft but unlikely as you're only changing a hard drive, they're very good if you do have to call them anyway.

I doubt if you will notice that much of a speed increase by moving to SATA BTW.

EDIT: Forgot to say if you want to clone your old disk, buy a Seagate or Maxtor disk and you can then download a copy of their DiskWizard software, it is a rebadged verison of Acronis TrueImage and is superb.

jonnyb

the new hard drive is in, and working - with xp installed no problems.

thanks for all your helpful suggestions.