IDE SATA ghost question

[waxy]

Alright....
what i did and where i'm at first:
upgraded my hardware, including a new SATA drive.
Started the computer, removed bad drivers and installed the updated drivers.
got everything perfect (yes, windows has no problem at all seeing the sata)
ghosted the IDE single partition drive to the SATA drive.

i can boot to the boot.ini on my IDE drive and from there boot to either windows on IDE or SATA.
booted to sata windows, edited registry so that SATA windows and IDE windows both see the drive they are on as C:\ (so that they don't access files across drives by mistake.)
- IDE boots to IDE-harddrive\windows, IDE windows sees IDE drive as C:\
- SATA boots to SATA-harddrive\windows, SATA windows sees SATA drive as C:\

But then i found the stumper.
because win XP builds the MBR during install based on weather you have IDE drive or SATA drive, i am unable to boot just from the sata hard drive alone because the MBR contains IDE drivers and not SATA drivers.

i'd hate to completly reinstall windows just to build the MBR when this is the only problem i have.
is there some way i can just 'repair' the MBR on the sata drive so it will use sata drivers?
what if i get a backup MBR from another sata computer and 'restore' that MBR to the sata drive?

Suggestions on how i can keep from having to go through another whole install, ghost, etc... to fix this one small problem would be appreciated.

WinXP SP2
4 gb ram
60GB IDE FAT32 (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="PIDE1)
160GB SATA FAT32 (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="SATA1)
bare bones DOS for accessing files outside of windows
NO XP RESTORE DISK AVAILABLE but i do have SP1 i386 install folder that i THINK is still good. A lot of things i can't use it for because of version check)

(please don't preach to me about why i should use NTFS. i have no winXP disk to access a NTFS command prompt if windows crashes)

 

[waxy]

PS: i'm sorry i didn't find your faq before i started this process.

 

[apache_lives]

just do a reinstall - it will be alot quicker and less crammed - why does no one want to do a fresh reinstall? its the best thing for computers and solves most issues straight away

 

[waxy]

because i have more software on the old drive than i still have install programs for. (survived a fire about a year ago. lost A LOT of my equipment and disks)

so i'd have to install, upgrade to SP2 atleast, copy over the C:\program files, copy over the c:\windows, export/import the registry, cookies, bookmarks, LiteStep..... how is that faster than just correcting the MBR SATA drivers????

i've treated my software, os, and drive organization VERY good over the years. my install is as good as freash if not better because of my tweaking.


"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"

 

[waxy]

bump.

can backing up the mbr or boot sector from another sata computer and restoring it on this one fix the problem?
do you need the actual winxp cd to do boot fix or would the i386 folder be enough?
is there a 3rd party software that can get my winxp to boot from the sata drive?

 

[waxy]

Update:

...... i hate windoze..... it's member is both micro and soft.......

found a copy of winxp sp2
did winnt32.exe /cmdcons but it installed the recovery console to the IDE drive instead of to the SATA drive.

did a fixboot but, even though i was logged into the sata\windows and specified the sata drive, it fixed the boot for the ide\windows so it had no effect.

so i removed the recovery console, rebooted, during the boot process i removed the IDE drive. sata\windows never knew there was an IDE drive and it wasn't listed in My Computer. (just had it in long enough to get past the boot menu)

i tried winnt32.exe /cmdcons now that it never found the IDE drive it says
"No valid system partitions were found. setup is unable to continue"

can't find the partition even though windows is running on it?
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........................

 

[waxy]

CORRECTION:
WinXP SP2
4 gb ram
60GB IDE FAT32 (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="PIDE1)
465GB SATA FAT32 (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="SATA1)
bare bones DOS for accessing files outside of windows

 

[Crashman]

Alright....
what i did and where i'm at first:
upgraded my hardware, including a new SATA drive.
Started the computer, removed bad drivers and installed the updated drivers.
got everything perfect (yes, windows has no problem at all seeing the sata)
ghosted the IDE single partition drive to the SATA drive.

i can boot to the boot.ini on my IDE drive and from there boot to either windows on IDE or SATA.
booted to sata windows, edited registry so that SATA windows and IDE windows both see the drive they are on as C:\ (so that they don't access files across drives by mistake.)
- IDE boots to IDE-harddrive\windows, IDE windows sees IDE drive as C:\
- SATA boots to SATA-harddrive\windows, SATA windows sees SATA drive as C:\

But then i found the stumper.
because win XP builds the MBR during install based on weather you have IDE drive or SATA drive, i am unable to boot just from the sata hard drive alone because the MBR contains IDE drivers and not SATA drivers.

i'd hate to completly reinstall windows just to build the MBR when this is the only problem i have.
is there some way i can just 'repair' the MBR on the sata drive so it will use sata drivers?
what if i get a backup MBR from another sata computer and 'restore' that MBR to the sata drive?

Suggestions on how i can keep from having to go through another whole install, ghost, etc... to fix this one small problem would be appreciated.

WinXP SP2
4 gb ram
60GB IDE FAT32 (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="PIDE1)
160GB SATA FAT32 (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="SATA1)
bare bones DOS for accessing files outside of windows
NO XP RESTORE DISK AVAILABLE but i do have SP1 i386 install folder that i THINK is still good. A lot of things i can't use it for because of version check)

(please don't preach to me about why i should use NTFS. i have no winXP disk to access a NTFS command prompt if windows crashes)

You have some options, but first thing you need to know is this:

WINDOWS DOESN'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SATA AND ULTRA ATA DRIVES. It doesn't install differently. Your SATA drive was simply initialized improperly.

The easy way I've found to get copy-to drive initialized properly is to disconnect the copy-from drive and run Windows installation up to the point where it reboots. Then stop, connect the copy-from drive, and do the drive copy.

Windows DOES know the difference between AHCI and IDE modes, so the above statement applies to SATA drives when the controller is in IDE mode.

Anyway, the easy thing to do now is to disconnect the IDE drive and perform a "Repair Installation" on the SATA drive. A repair installation won't break your installed programs.

If you don't know how to do a repair installation, maybe someone with excessive patience can explain it further.

 

[jitpublisher]

^+1.....and stop cursing Windows, you should have asked before you started on something that you apparently could have used a little advice on beforehand.

 

[waxy]

well, guess what.
i found the problem all on my own and NO ONE had the right answer for WHY it will operate but not boot.

and you'll never guess.

Ok..... this is weird.

when i first cloned the drive with Norton Ghost 14 i told it to 'resize the new
partion' in the process.

yesterday, trying all sorts of tolls and links and banging my head against the wall
(even copping the first &h0040 hex of logical drives, overwrighting, restoring,
etc...)

i noticed something.... Even though i told norton ghost to use the entire drive in
the new partition it was ghosting to, only about 460 of 500GB was showing up.
granted, MBR and other fat32 information takes up space, but not 40GB of space!

so i had a thought.

i used easeus partion master pro to resized my partition DOWN to only about
160gb and restarted... EURIKA!!!

at 160 GB the cluster size was rewritten at 16.
somewhere over that size cluster size is written at 32. (bytes?)


anyway - i sized it down to 160gb and it booted up.
i then resiezed it again with that tool (this time to about 375gb) and it wrote the
new cluster size at 32.

and it still boots.

apparently, norton ghost, even though it resized the partiton, made some sort of
glitch with the boot cluster sizes wich easeus fixed!!!

i still can't get the full drive partitioned as fat32, don't know why, so i have about
93GB unpartioned space showing up. which is still a total of 460 something GB.

apparently i need new partition tools to get all 500 available.

norton ghost boffed it.
easeus can't do past ~375GB. (can't get past the 32 cluster size and reach the allowed 64?)

what else is out there?

either way - i found the "IDE TO SATA GHOST PROBLEM" all over the internet and NO ONE had the answer of "norton ghost boffs at 16/32 cluster details"
so i hope this information helps those that come after me.

(heh, i even beat a tom's hardware team member on this one - no instillation was needed. just 10 mins of partition resizing.



so the essential steps i used to ghost from IDE to SATA:
1 - norton ghost from ide to sata, go ahead and tell it to use max space.
*reboot, boot to old drive.

2 - EASEUS partition pro, decrease partiton sized to under 180
*reboot, boot to either drive

3 - EASEUS Partition Pro, increase partition size to max that Easeus allows.
*reboot to new drive, old drive MUST be disconnected, in some cases you need bootini to say rdisk(0) in others it needs to say rdisk(1) depending on how your mothboard sees the empty drive slot.

4 - unpartitioned space is yours to toy with.

FALSE information on the internet:
windows designs the boot sector based on IDE/SATA drives, so it can't be cloned. (i cloned it)
windows loads SATA drivers during SATA boot. (no new drivers installed after clone)
fixmbr and fixboot fixes the problem. (didn't work for me)
windows is the problem (completly false - it was a failing in Norton ghost 14.0 for me)

now i'm off to find a tool to let me use FAT32 for the full 500. that or I'll tinker with some new OSes. i still have 174GB of unpartitioned space.

google search keywords for future users:
sata ide ghost norton
can't boot off my new sata drive
winxp
fix boot sata
How to ghost IDE to SATA

 

[Crashman]

well, guess what.
i found the problem all on my own and NO ONE had the right answer for WHY it will operate but not boot.

and you'll never guess.

Ok..... this is weird.

when i first cloned the drive with Norton Ghost 14 i told it to 'resize the new
partion' in the process.

yesterday, trying all sorts of tolls and links and banging my head against the wall
(even copping the first &h0040 hex of logical drives, overwrighting, restoring,
etc...)

i noticed something.... Even though i told norton ghost to use the entire drive in
the new partition it was ghosting to, only about 460 of 500GB was showing up.
granted, MBR and other fat32 information takes up space, but not 40GB of space!

so i had a thought.

i used easeus partion master pro to resized my partition DOWN to only about
160gb and restarted... EURIKA!!!

at 160 GB the cluster size was rewritten at 16.
somewhere over that size cluster size is written at 32. (bytes?)


anyway - i sized it down to 160gb and it booted up.
i then resiezed it again with that tool (this time to about 375gb) and it wrote the
new cluster size at 32.

and it still boots.

apparently, norton ghost, even though it resized the partiton, made some sort of
glitch with the boot cluster sizes wich easeus fixed!!!

i still can't get the full drive partitioned as fat32, don't know why, so i have about
93GB unpartioned space showing up. which is still a total of 460 something GB.

apparently i need new partition tools to get all 500 available.

norton ghost boffed it.
easeus can't do past ~375GB. (can't get past the 32 cluster size and reach the allowed 64?)

what else is out there?

either way - i found the "IDE TO SATA GHOST PROBLEM" all over the internet and NO ONE had the answer of "norton ghost boffs at 16/32 cluster details"
so i hope this information helps those that come after me.

(heh, i even beat a tom's hardware team member on this one - no instillation was needed. just 10 mins of partition resizing.



so the essential steps i used to ghost from IDE to SATA:
1 - norton ghost from ide to sata, go ahead and tell it to use max space.
*reboot, boot to old drive.

2 - EASEUS partition pro, decrease partiton sized to under 180
*reboot, boot to either drive

3 - EASEUS Partition Pro, increase partition size to max that Easeus allows.
*reboot to new drive, old drive MUST be disconnected, in some cases you need bootini to say rdisk(0) in others it needs to say rdisk(1) depending on how your mothboard sees the empty drive slot.

4 - unpartitioned space is yours to toy with.

FALSE information on the internet:
windows designs the boot sector based on IDE/SATA drives, so it can't be cloned. (i cloned it)
windows loads SATA drivers during SATA boot. (no new drivers installed after clone)
fixmbr and fixboot fixes the problem. (didn't work for me)
windows is the problem (completly false - it was a failing in Norton ghost 14.0 for me)

now i'm off to find a tool to let me use FAT32 for the full 500. that or I'll tinker with some new OSes. i still have 174GB of unpartitioned space.

google search keywords for future users:
sata ide ghost norton
can't boot off my new sata drive
winxp
fix boot sata
How to ghost IDE to SATA

You already knew that windows can't tell the difference between SATA drives in IDE mode and Ultra ATA drives, because I told you that.

 

[apache_lives]

See all this information is crap, people should have original copies of there software or purchace reciepts, in event of loss, fire or damage etc insurance covers that sort of things, and what it all comes down to is DO A FRESH INSTALL - simple.

As for SATA/IDE etc, you can still install/boot off a "legacy" or native device (old ide hdd), install the RAID/SATA/AHCI controller driver, then get ghost to ghost a copy of that windows to that hdd connected to the RAID/SATA/AHCI controller and it will boot fine, because it knows of the drivers etc - do it all the time to avoid finding/installing "F6" drivers during install for clients.

And to the OP saying that "NO ONE had the right answer for WHY it will operate but not boot" - no one has your computer, no one can tell exactly why because we are not in front of it, and i don't think anyone cares about keeping there install of windows etc, be thankful of the help people provide here "free".

 

[Crashman]

See all this information is crap, people should have original copies of there software or purchace reciepts, in event of loss, fire or damage etc insurance covers that sort of things, and what it all comes down to is DO A FRESH INSTALL - simple.

As for SATA/IDE etc, you can still install/boot off a "legacy" or native device (old ide hdd), install the RAID/SATA/AHCI controller driver, then get ghost to ghost a copy of that windows to that hdd connected to the RAID/SATA/AHCI controller and it will boot fine, because it knows of the drivers etc - do it all the time to avoid finding/installing "F6" drivers during install for clients.

And to the OP saying that "NO ONE had the right answer for WHY it will operate but not boot" - no one has your computer, no one can tell exactly why because we are not in front of it, and i don't think anyone cares about keeping there install of windows etc, be thankful of the help people provide here "free".

Imaging drives from Ultra ATA to SATA is easy if the integrated SATA controller is set to IDE mode, because no drivers are needed. I've had systems with software loaded that I no longer had the media or hard copy of the licenses for (lost the box with the license and CD's inside), and I've been able to copy the drives without any major issue.

I use Acronis True Image for that, but had previously used Powerquest Drive Image. For both, I had to do a partial instal of Windows on the new drive before copying the old system partition to it.

Setting the system to AHCI mode afterwards can be tricky.

Because my version of True Image doesn't work with some AHCI controllers, for AHCI to AHCI images I switch the controller to IDE mode before using True Image, then change it back to AHCI mode after making the copy. Because the original partition has its AHCI drivers, it still works in AHCI mode even if IDE mode was used to make the copy.

 

[waxy]

See all this information is crap, people should have original copies of there software or purchace reciepts, in event of loss, fire or damage etc insurance covers that sort of things,

I agree 100% about that part of the statement.

HOWEVER, when you buy a computer the windows license they have doesn't allow them to provide you with a real windows CD. same for alot of the other software that comes on your computer.