SATA HD with Win XP and IDE HD with Win XP

by Peter
(Sacramento, CA)

I currently have a PC I put together with an operational IDE Hard Drive (HD) and I also have a new SATA HD with no OS.

I want to know if I can install the SATA drive, load Windows XP, and have this the boot drive? I know SATA doesn't require any jumper settings but I would only need to set the boot drive in the BIOS. Once that is done, I think if I boot the system, I will boot to the new HD.

Will I be able to access my files from the IDE drive? I ask because Win XP is on that drive and I hope there won't be any problems.

Can anyone answer this question?

Update from Peter Re: SATA HD with Win XP and IDE HD with Win XP

So folks, I've been troubleshooting till late last night and found out that this is possible, as I thought it would be but just wanted to make sure.

I loaded Win XP on the new SATA HD to access the original IDE HD and did see all contents as I expected. I also found a great cloning utility from the < href="http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en">Western Digitals site. I was able to clone the IDE HD and put the image on the new SATA, but after a restart I received the same black screen stating there is some hardware change preventing Windows to load. So I had to reinstall Win XP on the SATA again, and this is where I stand.

Question: Being that the previous IDE HD is not drive E, instead of C, will all paths change automatically once the drive was labeled E? I hope so, since that's going to be a lot of changing.

I'd appreciate some feedback/advice.