Cloning IDE (PATA) HDD with Windows XP SP3 O/S and Data Files to New SATA SSD.

[964turbo2]

I intend Cloning my existing IDE (PATA) HDD which contains Windows XP SP3 O/S, Programmes and Data Files to a New, Unused SATA SSD, ready to install the SSD into another Laptop which uses SATA architecture. Are there any danger areas to be avoided in this process and, more importantly, can it be done ? Any advice/information would be very welcome-thanks.

 

[TerryLaze]

It can be done with a lot of work but it still won't work,a new laptop will not have drivers for windows XP so even if you manage to boot into windows a lot of your hardware won't be available,if the lap has XP drivers then it might work.

You can search on the net for dissimilar cloning and read up on it a bit.

 

[guest_999]

There are 2 major issues in this based on my basic knowledge so there may be some technical inaccuracies but overall general conclusion is same I believe:

1.From IDE to SATA(older hardware used to have sata ports in compatibility mode kinda like UEFI/BIOS so that PATA drives install cloned to sata drives or sata drives install in compatibility mode would work on them by loading appropriate driver during OS install).Newer hardware almost always have sata ports set as AHCI(aka non-compatible mode/non PATA mode) so the connected drive will work only when AHCI driver is already loaded in installed OS.Now here is the problem,earlier OS like XP load only the driver which was originally loaded when installing OS so if XP was installed on a PATA hdd or SATA hdd connected to sata port in compatibility mode,it would not have loaded AHCI driver so the XP install will not have AHCI driver.If you clone this install to a sata hdd & then connect it to a sata port set to AHCI mode you will immediately get a BSOD because of missing driver.You can correct it but the procedure is a bit complicated involving windows registry editing etc.

2.Older OS like XP was not really optimized for ssd & I think there are some issues cloning XP install on a PATA/SATA hdd to SSD because of older drives physical layout of sectors.There are softwares that can adjust this while cloning from a conventional hdd to ssd but combining this with above & this is a tricky situation with a lot of chances of things going bad.