SATA Boot Drive on Dell Precision Workstation 370?

macman

I'm trying to replace the hard drive on the above for one with a larger capacity. The existing configuration is 2 SCSI hard drives, both are now full.
What I'd like to do is clone the 'C' drive (which contains the OS, XP), over to a new larger SATA drive, and then remove the older C drive. The motherboard has 4 SATA ports, which I wasn't expecting on a PC made in 2004. At present there are no SATA devices connected.
If I clone the drive using Acronis True Image, am I likely to hit any problems getting the system to boot off the new SATA drive, yet still maintaining access to the remaining older SCSI 'D' drive?
I'm assuming it will be necessary to enable SATA in the BIOS, but is there anything else I'll need to do, or any other potential problem areas?

m5rcc

I think what you have said is the sensible approach....

spud17

I thought that XP did not natively have SATA drivers?

macman

spud17 wrote: »

I thought that XP did not natively have SATA drivers?

May well be so, but there are definitely 4 SATA ports on the mobo according to the manual (it's not my PC, so haven't opened it up yet-I'm just trying to establish if what I'm planning is possible).
There are SATA drivers available for download on the Dell support site for this model.
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriversHome/?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19
I think some versions of this model were sold with SATA drives installed rather than the unusual SCSI arrangement?

spud17

macman wrote: »

May well be so, but there are definitely 4 SATA ports on the mobo according to the manual (it's not my PC, so haven't opened it up yet-I'm just trying to establish if what I'm planning is possible).
There are SATA drivers available for download on the Dell support site for this model.
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriversHome/?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19
I think some versions of this model were sold with SATA drives installed rather than the unusual SCSI arrangement?

I didn't say you couldn't.

It's just when installing XP you get the opportunity to load SATA drivers (via floppy) by using F6.

In the case of the ones shipped with SATA drives, Dell would have customised their XP disks to include drivers.

I've easy enough to slipstream SATA drivers onto an XP, but I don't know how you'd integrate them into an already up and running C: drive.

Probi

How about installing the SATA drivers on the current C drive before you create the image to take across?

macman

Or it's possible that they have already installed the drivers anyway. I guess what I need to do next is to get into the BIOS and see if SATA is enabled there then?