Cloning IDE to SATA

[BryanA917]

I'm so grateful for these forums and depend heavily upon them. This is one answer that didn't come up in my search, however. I'm working for a nice agency in helping to attach some new computers to their long-standing network. The new Dell Dimension 8400's weren't my choice, but I must cope.

They are SATA driven with XP Home. None-the-less, all their old IDE Win2000 drives have the proper settings and personal data that employees expect to find and access when I'm finished. My goal is to format the SATAs, clone the Win2000 to them and then format the IDEs for additional storage.

Will I encounter a problem cloning from IDE to SATA?
Is there a recommended software for this? (I don't have or use Norton Ghost.)
Is it openly available on the Internet?

Thanks for help...

[cscgal]

Personally, I would not do this. Especially when upgrading to a newer computer, cloning old drives can be much more trouble than their worth - think of motherboard drivers and configurations that installed themselves during Windows installation, etc., not to mention all of the other device drivers. I just don't recommend it because it can get pretty messy, especially in the good ole registry.

[BryanA917]

Usually, I wouldn't even attempt this - to keep the personal files entact, I went to the Dell website to download drivers for all available catagories. I'm happy to say that the Intel chipset and main devices were provided for with drivers for 2000 and XP.

When my client's employees saw their desktops again with pictures of doggies and family, they were happy and the client was then happy. So I'm happy to report that the drivers have already been a success; that leads me to the question above... The process is all legit as far as Microsoft is concerned as well since each user will have their original version of Windows only once on one harddrive in the end.