[mspin]

OK, Looked at 4 pages of SATA threads, and did not see this specific problem. This one has been a hair puller for 3 days...

Current Hardware:
Epox 9NDA3J motherboard (socket 939)
nVida nForce 3 Ultra chipset
Bios update 5/6/06 (current to date)
AMD Athlon 64 3000 cpu
Corsair 1GB PC3200 RAM (one stick)
Maxtor Diamondmax 10 120GB SATA 1
Quantum Fireball 20GB IDE
Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) with current patches
Partitions: SATA 12GB (OS) NTFS, 108GB (storage) FAT32 w/10MB unallocated
IDE 7GB (OS) NTFS 13GB (storage) (FAT32) w/39MB unallocated

I want to transfer/run the OS from the newly purchased SATA drive. The SATA drive is fully detected in the BIOS, and when both the IDE and SATA are connected, the SATA drive shows in Windows as extended partitions, not a separate physical drive. Shutdown and disconnected the IDE drive, cold boot with the SATA drive, and Windows will not load with error message in BIOS screen: Error Loading OS.

All PATA and SATA drivers showup in Device Manager on the IDE and function normally. Used the current MaxBlast utility to transfer the IDE OS to the SATA, using the boot drive option for the new SATA drive. Got the error "ntldr missing" the first time, "Error Loading OS" on subsequent boots. Boots nominally from the IDE drive even when the SATA drive is connected and/or the IDE is set as first boot drive in the BIOS.

The volume labels on the SATA read Drive 3 -- probably because I had a second smaller IDE 10GB Quantum storage drive connected with the first (master/slave). I removed the second IDE storage drive before starting to do any of this, and have not attempted to reconnect that drive. I assumed the SATA would not load the OS because the transfered files were still looking at the IDE drive as the system drive (ntldr). Tried changing the boot.ini to disk(1) on the SATA without effect. I currently show two Active partitions in Disk Manager: IDE is drive 0, and SATA is 1 when both drives are connected.

Indeed, so I disconnected the IDE, tried and in-place upgrade with the Windows install disk, and for good measure, used the NV controller and RAID drivers,(Nvida Nforce Storage Controller and Nvida Raid Class Driver), via F6, even though I don't want RAID (disabled it in BIOS), but want two separate physical drives (with 4 separate drive letter partitions). No problems/errors until the reboot. Still gives the same damn "error Loading OS." Started from scratch, deleted the partitons and reformatted the SATA. Tried the above again, same result. If I let the Windows install CD boot after the required reboot after the intital install, it sends me back to square one. It is booting from the SATA, but not loading the OS.

Have a Ghost image of the IDE with the SATA drivers/controllers on it, but cant use the Ghost boot disk with the SATA, as it hangs on the scanning PCI #2 line... The other issue that may be related is it shows as a unplugable device in the system tray.

Stuck at this point. Am I missing somethig obvious? The answer will get my undying gratitude!

[Scorpion]

I remember I had a similar problem when I went over to SATA.

Try this....depending on your BIOS, it might be slightly different, but should give you a rough idea.

Go to BIOS, and see if there is an IDE Config entry. If so, go in, and then see if there is somewhere you can set 'Onboard IDE Operating Mode' to Enhanced. Then make sure both PATA and SATA are selected as types or whatever it is.

This is what I had to set to get mine running about a year ago (and yes, I just rebooted and went into BIOS to get the details... )

Good luck, and if it works, I'll send you my order for a new machine, and maybe a car, as part of the undying gratitude...

Scorp.

[mspin]

Thanks for the advice, Scorpion. Don't know if it had anything to do with the reply being your post #666, but nothing has changed, even though I am not afraid of that number....

I don't have an Enhanced mode setting anywhere in the BIOS. I have an Access Mode setting for the SATA drive = Large. Switching that on/off has no effect. The IDE Mode and the On chip SATA are either Auto or Disabled choices. Don't see any enhanced mode settings for either drive in Device Manager. All are running UDMA.

It's not a very good BIOS (Phoenix), and there are fewer BIOS choices/menus with that then my old Socket A board, and it was an Epox too! Naturally, I am trying to avoid rebuilding the SATA drive from scratch with a clean Win2k install and then have to reinstall my apps, only to be stuck in the same place again. So, I may try to download more current PATA/SATA controller drivers from nVidia (monster size downloads). The installed PATA/SATA controller drivers from the Epox disk are version 2.6. If the above does not work, I guess neither will the SATA. It's telling me "no soup for you..." .

No car for you, I'm afraid. But thanks much for answering.

[KTBFFH]

Hi,
I did what you are trying to do recently. On two desktops, one of my desktops ide to sata (win2k) and another from sata to sata (xp).
I have Asus mobos in both systems and used Acronis True Image 9 as the "cloning" software.
Note: I tried using Seagate utilities for cloning/copying on my second desktop and ran into issues booting and was advised that the utilities from the drive manufacturers should not be used for cloning so I went back to True Image (as it had worked for me on the first desktop).
I ensured that the target drives were installed with a single partition only and did a full drive error check, bad sectors etc. before copying the drives.
Upon reboot, after cloning, of the systems I would boot from either the new or the original system drive and disconnect the other altogether.
Ensure that you have the sata drive connected to the recommended sata port for booting from.
In the bios I ensured that the boot priority sequence was set according to which drive I would be booting from (I am going to reboot and check my bios and see if there is anything that I changed and forgot about, if so I will add it to the thread).

I don't know if this will help or jog the memory a little and remind you to do something that you may have forgotten.

Good luck.