new hard drive

[ShadowBlade]

ill be getting a raptor sometime in the next couple weeks to use as my boot drive...
can i just install it at the same time as my current boot drive and copy everything from the current one to the raptor w/o reinstalling windows and programs, etc

old drive is crappy WD 40GB 5400RPM dell pull

 

[Fern]

Search around a bit. Thought I saw something on this yesterday or so..

Recommended software for cloning w/SATA was Acronis True Image IIRC.

Fern

 

[mrbill14]

So.... you're going from a PATA IDE hard drive to a SATA hard drive?

With the old system up and running, make sure you have the SATA drivers loaded (look under device manager) before you make the switch.

If you don't see the SATA controller, you may have to hook up a drive to it first. Once Windows recognizes it, and installs the drivers for it, power down and (I agree with Fern with Acronis True Image) image the old HD onto the new one. Pull the old HD out, change your BIOS settings to boot from the SATA controller and it should come up.

(Hopefully, I didn't leave any steps out...)

 

[ShadowBlade]

sorry, what do you mean by image?
probably one of my stupid questions

 

[stevty2889]

I would download the western digital utilities, so that you can use it to mirror the old drive to the new one. You can't really just copy the files over and have it work, you need something that clones it to the new drive, so it will be able to boot. Depending on your motherboard, you may also have to have the SATA drivers, so I would have them ready of a floppy in case you need to do a repair install.

 

[ShadowBlade]

do you have a link?