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<<<<< I know nothing about SATA. My MB is an Iwill that supports it and it's built in.

 My questions: Do I have to install any kind of drivers for SATA or are they native to XP? Can I install a SATA HD in the other plug and use it as my boot drive? My 80 gig is getting crowded and 5 years on a HD makes me nervous. Will these drives be recognized my BIOS and XP? Will XP balk at these changes and force me to contact MS support (I'm sorry, what did you just say) for their blessing to make it work? What's the best program for copying the contents of my old boot drive to the new drive?>>>>> Art Cassel

Hi,

(1) NO...you need not install any drivers for SATA hdd/dvd writer or whatever and the moment you hook them up win xp will detect "new hardware" and install.

(2)YES.. . you can have a separate SATA hdd acting as a boot drive but you will have to set it up as such in your bios.


(3) NO... xp will not grumble about these drives.... at least it did NOT in my case and, your bios should show these drives.


(4) acronis "true image" is a good utility for cloning hdd images and other functions (NOTE: I DO NOT HAVE ANY CONNECTIONS WITH THE COMPANY)

(5)if you buy a seagate SATA hdd you can download "seagate disc wizard" from their web site and this has a legitimate copy of acronis product.

it has the following functions

clone, add new disc, image backup,image restore, create bootable media.

AGAIN NO CONNECTIONS WITH SEAGATE AND NOT AWARE OF PRICE DIFFERENCE WITH COMPARABLE PRODUCTS

(6) SATA simply denotes the interface cable between the hdd/mobo and is about
1cm in width compared to IDE cable of about 1.5 INCHES. so possibility of more airflow inside the case.

HTH and good luck----Venkat

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