Question Clone IDE HD to a mechanical SATA HD - Win XP pc

[oakmead]

I have pc with ASUS P5P800 SE motherboard, which currently has IDE HD installed and running WinXP.

The mb appears to support SATA with 2 ports, although currently not in use.

Within the mb installation guide, it states the following:
Install Windows® XP Service Pack1 or later versions before using the Serial ATA feature. ( Service Pack 3 already installed )

Hot plug support for Serial ATA drive and connectors are not available in this motherboard.

The ICH chipset support to one of the IDE channels (either primary or secondary channel) is disabled in a legacy operating system (DOS, Windows® 98/ME) when you use the SATA connectors.

Would it be possible to clone the existing IDE HD to either a mechanical SATA HD or a SSD, once one is installed, although due the existing HD partitioning, most probably a SATA HD as I believe SSD partition differently.

Also, as the current mb appears to support SATA, can I had a SATA drive without the need of a IDE to SATA adapter ?

 

[Lutfij]

I went through your motherboard's manual;
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5P800 SE/e2196_p5p800se.pdf?model=P5P800 SE
the ICH5 controller supports 2xSATA ports but they'll be running at SATA I speeds. Which leads me to ask what drive are you looking at to replace the IDE drive?

 

[BFG-9000]

It's an 865PE motherboard, and all you have to know is the ICH5 Southbridge controls both IDE and SATA connectors, but uses different drivers depending on whether you choose IDE or AHCI modes in the BIOS. If you just change from IDE to AHCI then you'll get a bluescreen on boot as the IDE device it expects will be missing. With IDE mode it addresses SATA devices as just like any other IDE device

If you clone XP from IDE to SATA, make sure the BIOS is set to IDE mode and the clone on SATA should boot fine. If you then want to change this to AHCI mode without reinstalling XP, then there are all kinds of online guides to show you how, and as the motherboard manual helpfully suggests, at least XP SP1 would be required for that.

If you only want to use SATA as a data drive then you don't have to worry about any of this + can select AHCI since after XP boots from the IDE drive it can look for drivers for the new AHCI device.

What the manual is saying is for maximum compatibility with Win9x and earlier you can select "compatible" mode in the BIOS which will restrict you to 4 drives, so if you use two SATA drives the board will only see two additional IDE drives. Don't select that and your board can see six drives simultaneously.

Partitions work exactly the same way on SSD so a SATA SSD would work fine as a clone, in IDE mode. Note that ICH5 does not support TRIM

 

[oakmead]

I went through your motherboard's manual;
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5P800 SE/e2196_p5p800se.pdf?model=P5P800 SE
the ICH5 controller supports 2xSATA ports but they'll be running at SATA I speeds. Which leads me to ask what drive are you looking at to replace the IDE drive?

I never considered the SATA speed.
Currently the Pc operates perfectly well, although the current mechanical IDE HD is over 10 yrs old and although it backs itself up some how and the drive is partitioned and all documents are also backed up on to a 1tb ext USB HD, which is used as the primary storage device; all the software is running on the existing IDE HD.

My original intention was to update the existing IDE mechanical HD, due to its age but rather than have to reinstall all the software and WinXp onto the new drive, I thought best to just to cloned existing drive on to a new HD.

However, I found a tutorial online, where an old WinXP pc was updated to use a SSD by way a IDE to SATA adapter and it was only when exploring this option, did I discover mechanical SATA HD being available for “ legacy “ pc’s still running Win XP, which got me thinking, that has my existing mb already support SATA, then maybe I wouldn’t need a IDE to SATA adapter, although not realising the SATA 1 speed difference, although I’m guessing a SATA HD for legacy pc’s may run at SATA 1 speed anyway.?

Then I came to the conclusion… Do I really need to migrate to a SSD and would utilising the mb’s existing SATA ports and installing a mechanical SATA HD suffice ?

I also came across an article, which stated that SSD partition differently to mechanical drives when using old versions of Windows, such as XP.

Primarily, I want to update and clone my existing IDE HD but I only have the one pc, the pc that I wish to update.

Once updated to the new HD, whether it’s a mechanical SATA 1 or a SSD, it will be the primary drive and I’ll continue to use the ext USB HD for the primary storage.

 

[BFG-9000]

Given that ICH5 doesn't support Ultra ATA/133 (and in fact no Intel Southbridge does), any IDE device whether through an IDE-to-SATA converter or using the SATA ports in IDE mode, will operate at Ultra ATA/100 speeds of 100MB/s.

One of the reasons you would want to convert your XP installation to AHCI mode is in fact so it can operate at 150MB/s SATA-150 speeds. Not that it would always help--many early 10,000rpm WD Raptor SATA drives were in fact PATA drives with a bridge chip to SATA exactly as if you had used a IDE-to-SATA converter, but that was of little consequence then as the sequential speed capability of the drive did not exceed 100MB/s. But even when limited to 100MB/s, a SSD will feel way faster than a HDD at 150MB/s.

ICH5 works with newer SATA drives just fine (yes, even SATA-600 SSDs), just at the slower speed. I mention this because the early SATA-150 implementations of VIA chipsets cannot see SATA-300 drives unless there is either a jumper on the drive to limit them to SATA-150 mode, or a feature tool utility from the drive manufacturer can be used to limit the interface speed. You would also want to do this with certain nVidia chipsets that actually feature SATA-300 speed capability due to known corruption issues when actually operating at 300MB/s speeds. These things were supposed to be backwards compatible but it was not always so in practice.

 

[oakmead]

Given that ICH5 doesn't support Ultra ATA/133 (and in fact no Intel Southbridge does), any IDE device whether through an IDE-to-SATA converter or using the SATA ports in IDE mode, will operate at Ultra ATA/100 speeds of 100MB/s.

One of the reasons you would want to convert your XP installation to AHCI mode is in fact so it can operate at 150MB/s SATA-150 speeds. Not that it would always help--many early 10,000rpm WD Raptor SATA drives were in fact PATA drives with a bridge chip to SATA exactly as if you had used a IDE-to-SATA converter, but that was of little consequence then as the sequential speed capability of the drive did not exceed 100MB/s. But even when limited to 100MB/s, a SSD will feel way faster than a HDD at 150MB/s.

ICH5 works with newer SATA drives just fine (yes, even SATA-600 SSDs), just at the slower speed. I mention this because the early SATA-150 implementations of VIA chipsets cannot see SATA-300 drives unless there is either a jumper on the drive to limit them to SATA-150 mode, or a feature tool utility from the drive manufacturer can be used to limit the interface speed. You would also want to do this with certain nVidia chipsets that actually feature SATA-300 speed capability due to known corruption issues when actually operating at 300MB/s speeds. These things were supposed to be backwards compatible but it was not always so in practice.

Thanks for your very thorough replies.
However, your level of knowledge wat exceeds mine and all variations and speeds is getting beyond me.

The pc I’m attempting to upgrade, it’s only used once in a blue moon but it does come in handy and I have software installed, which was purchased outright years ago and now it’s only available via subscription for more recent versions of Windows and I wouldn’t use them often enough to justify the cost of subscription or to buy a new pc.

Initially I had no intention of migrating to a SSD and I intended to upgrade the current HD due to its age, and for ease of installation, just clone it like for like, rather than reinstall all the software.

As my pc’s mb has supports SATA1 speed and it’s current speed has never been a problem, depending on cost, I probably clone the current IDE HDD to a SATA HDD, then boot from the new SATA drive and completely remove the IDE HDD due to its age.

Although I assume I would have to somehow connect the SATA HDD as a slave drive so to clone the IDE HDD.

 

[BFG-9000]

You don't have to master or slave anything (it's not possible in any case with SATA), and don't even have to remove the IDE HDD after the clone, because you can choose which drive to boot from in the BIOS. I still have Pentium 4 with ICH5 computers today, and for 20 years they have all been multiple-boot, to Win ME, Win XP and since 2009 to Win 7 too, since the BIOS allows selecting which drive has boot priority and thus will be C: this time.

I would strongly suggest selecting a drive cloning software that is bootable, because not everything can be copied when files are in use and modern cloning software may not be tested to or designed to copy from a running instance of Windows XP. You simply go into the BIOS and give 1st priority to booting from the optical drive or USB (or floppy!) to boot from it. Needless to say be very, very careful when selecting which drive is source and which destination or you could all too easily clone a blank drive over your XP one.

If you want to continue using 32-bit Windows, be aware that 2TB is the largest size disk that Windows can boot from when using Legacy BIOS rather than 2013+ UEFI. 32-bit Linux can boot from larger disks but they must still be formatted GPT rather than MBR, and wouldn't help you use your old software.

A 2TB SATA HDD is a good choice, as using a SSD without TRIM support isn't maintenance-free--you have to notice when the drive slows way down and go manually zero-fill the unused space when it does (using either Microsoft's downloadable commandline program sdelete, or the cipher command included with Windows), unless you buy a vintage SSD from 2009 back when the manufacturers had utilities to do this automatically for you in Windows XP. And that would be older than your IDE HDD.

Age isn't a good indicator of when a drive will die, and even for a brand new drive it's good to have a clone backup. Once you make a copy of your IDE drive and ensure it's bootable, you could leave it in your PC case but unplug the cables from it if you want it to be safe against lightning (but not fire). Or given that your backup wouldn't be of much use if the computer it's for was destroyed, you could elect to just leave it connected as a secondary disk, but then it would not be protected against ransomware or viruses.

 

[oakmead]

You don't have to master or slave anything (it's not possible in any case with SATA), and don't even have to remove the IDE HDD after the clone, because you can choose which drive to boot from in the BIOS. I still have Pentium 4 with ICH5 computers today, and for 20 years they have all been multiple-boot, to Win ME, Win XP and since 2009 to Win 7 too, since the BIOS allows selecting which drive has boot priority and thus will be C: this time.

I would strongly suggest selecting a drive cloning software that is bootable, because not everything can be copied when files are in use and modern cloning software may not be tested to or designed to copy from a running instance of Windows XP. You simply go into the BIOS and give 1st priority to booting from the optical drive or USB (or floppy!) to boot from it. Needless to say be very, very careful when selecting which drive is source and which destination or you could all too easily clone a blank drive over your XP one.

If you want to continue using 32-bit Windows, be aware that 2TB is the largest size disk that Windows can boot from when using Legacy BIOS rather than 2013+ UEFI. 32-bit Linux can boot from larger disks but they must still be formatted GPT rather than MBR, and wouldn't help you use your old software.

A 2TB SATA HDD is a good choice, as using a SSD without TRIM support isn't maintenance-free--you have to notice when the drive slows way down and go manually zero-fill the unused space when it does (using either Microsoft's downloadable commandline program sdelete, or the cipher command included with Windows), unless you buy a vintage SSD from 2009 back when the manufacturers had utilities to do this automatically for you in Windows XP. And that would be older than your IDE HDD.

Age isn't a good indicator of when a drive will die, and even for a brand new drive it's good to have a clone backup. Once you make a copy of your IDE drive and ensure it's bootable, you could leave it in your PC case but unplug the cables from it if you want it to be safe against lightning (but not fire). Or given that your backup wouldn't be of much use if the computer it's for was destroyed, you could elect to just leave it connected as a secondary disk, but then it would not be protected against ransomware or viruses.

Thanks for your very thorough replies; I have a far better understanding now, also, I’ve found additional tutorials on YouTube demonstrating similar upgrades.

I’ve not weighed up the cost, and that’ll be the deciding factor as to whether to use a SATA HDD or a SSD, although I’m swaying towards the SSD.

Thanks again for your very helpful and thorough response.