This should go, and was, in the Software and Gaming board, but it's more games than software.  I figgered I could get more help here.

So I've been farting around with cloning my drive, but so far, no go.  I have my SATA as the master, and the IDE as the slave and their partitions are configured C,D,E and F,G,H respectively.  This is what I've been doing so far.  I downloaded Casper XP off download.com and cloned C to F.  After I disconnected the IDE, upon startup I get a message (not from XP) telling me the OS can't be found, has an error or some jazz like that.  I thought maybe this is because all the settings are for C:\ and the new drive is F:\ so nothing is truly "there".  Just a guess, but I haven't been able to alter drive letters for system volumes anyway.  Anyone have any ideas?

Nah, I think you've got me wrong.  This is my set-up:

• Primary IDE
  
  • DVD-R/RW
  • DVD-ROM
• Secondary IDE
  
  • 250 GB
  • CD-ROM
• SATA
  
  • 250GB
  • {Empty}

I'm gonna get a CD-RW, but as you can see, I'm fresh out of IDE spaces.  SATA is faster as well, so 'twas the logical choice.  I'm gonna sell my IDE drive, but I wanna transfer all my settings to my SATA, which has the exact same partitions as the IDE.

I appreciate the info on C:\ though, and I'll what I can do with the settings.

EDIT: Just had a thought.  What if you were to go about trying to "restore" the SATA drive using the IDE drive as a back up?  Wouldn't it copy just the same?  Perhaps the SATA calling upon the IDE would be better than the IDE forcing itself upon the SATA.  Perhaps?

Is int there a fanction in XP to transfer OS's
from HD to HD?

This month's Pers.Comp.World magazine (and others) have on their free CD the Acronis's "Migrade Easy 7" program.
Could this help you better?.

Just backup all data you need to keep onto another hd or cd/dvd.

Then just reinstall windows on the primary drive. This is the easiest and simplest way to do it.

OS migrators are a pin in the ass to use and often do things incorrectly leading to driver errors, incorrect registory entires, etc.

My advice is too backup data and reinstall windows.

the PC won't get confused as it sees the partitions with ID numbers, not just drive names, it's you who has to be careful not to get them mixed up.

From the new XP installation (or the old one?) you can run the " Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" ( I think it's called), (in control panel?)

Seagate supplies a util called diskwizard that will build a new, bootable drive from an old one. Not sure if it supports SATA, but they do supply SATA drives so.......

Failing all else, get the 2 drives hooked up on the same PC and copy each partition to it's respective twin on the new drive, with the exception of C: drive.

C: drive won't copy because some windows files/exe's are resident in memory in order for the system to run, there are utils that can get around this, but it gets a little complex.