SATA hard drive disks are replacing IDE drives.
Before the widespread use of the SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) hard drive storage system, the type used was IDE (Integrated Development Environment). The main difference between the two, aside from how they connect to a motherboard, is the speed at which you could access the information on your hard drive. If you have an IDE hard drive and want to move the data from that drive to a newer SATA hard drive you are in luck. The process for switching the data from one to the other is actually rather simple.
Instructions
Simple Copy And Paste Method
1. Power down the PC and unplug the power cord from the system.
2. Connect the SATA drive onto the computer.
3. Plug the power cord back into the computer and turn on the system. The computer should automatically detect the new drive and install drivers for it. If your SATA drive came with drivers, install those using the CD provided by the manufacturer.
4. Copy all the data on the older IDE drive and paste it onto the new SATA drive. This process, depending on how much data you have, could take a while. This is a simple copy-and-paste procedure that you would use to copy something from one folder to another. In this case, you are copying everything from one drive to another.
Using Software
5. Install the drivers and software that came with the SATA hard drive following the prompts from the manufacturer CD.
6. Use included software to create a copy of your IDE drive onto the SATA drive. Many of these programs are very simple to use and only ask you to choose the drive to copy onto the new drive. There are also free programs online you can use, but, generally speaking, the software designed by the same people who made the drive is a better choice.
7. Begin the copy process from IDE to SATA. Again, this process can take a while based on the speed of the IDE drive and how much data you are moving over to the new SATA drive.
Tags: hard drive, SATA drive, SATA hard, SATA hard drive, came with