SATA to IDE.. Recognized but Cant Boot from..

[ilcaa]

HELP ME GET THIS SATA BOOTABLE!

FACTS
i have a EMachine w244, original HD is, Ultra100 IDE controller, 5200 rpm and noisy
I have a Baracuda 7200 SATA drive that I wanted to use in my computer instead of the stock HD.

I purchased this SATA to IDE bridge adaptor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812226024) to interconnect the SATA drive to my IDE MOBO Controller.
I do the connection and crack up the computer.
It takes me to the black screen asking "how do i want to start up": (normal, without networking, safe mode, etc) i choose normal, restarts and loops to black screen again. I choose safe, it says "loading windows files", and loops back to booting and black screen again. Nothing gets me to windows.

I look into the BIOS, and it DOES recognizes the make/model of the drive of this SATA drive (again interconnected by bridge to IDE). I tinker with the boot sequence and nothing, same looping to black screen.

I then connect both HD's. (original IDE and SATA HD with bridge), I am able to get to windows (boots from original IDE HD), i can see the SATA drive ok as well from windows and go to its files. Under "computer management", I see both drives, and the make/model is recognized!

The windows file system is in SATA drive (it came from another working PC).


If windows can recognize it, Why cant it boot to the SATA HD? What could be the possibilities if recognized and I can see from within Windows?


thanks

 

[mavroxur]

The Windows installation on the SATA hard drive.....where did it come from? If it's a windows install that was in a different computer, you can't just pull hard drives from other computers and boot them in yours. Windows doesn't generally play like that. You will either need to clone the Windows installation on your old hard drive to the new SATA drive, or install windows fresh on the SATA hard drive.

 

[ilcaa]

Yes the hard drive was a functional XP windows program from another computer. Honestly I thought you could just plug and play the hard drive to the MOBO and boot from it. What does Windows look at to say "this is not the original MOBO, dont boot or cant boot?"

I see what my options are, thanks for the insight, would love to know WHY windows doesnt plug play HD, if you happen to know

thanks

 

[mavroxur]

It's because windows is trying to load system-specific drivers for the old system, and when you boot that drive in a different machine with a different motherboard, the windows installation sometimes has a hard time loading the base drivers to boot. It's not that it won't boot, it's that it can't boot. You can run a Windows repair if you boot from the original CD, that will also fix it. I'd recommend just using Ghost or something to clone the hard drive

 

[ilcaa]

Best answer selected by ilcaa.