IDE to SATA transfer

I have an ageing PC with XP Home loaded on an Maxtor IDE HD.

If I buy a new PC with a SATA HD containing, say Windows 7, how can I copy all the contents of my IDE HD on to the SATA one EXCEPT the XP OS?

Can this be done or would I have to manually re-load all my programs to the SATA HD?

 

You can't really just copy programs from one machine to another nowadays as they usually make numerous entries into the registry that are required for them to operate properly.

If you change the OS there's not much you can do except grit your teeth and and allocate a wodge of time to re-installation.

The IDE -> SATA thing is not relevant.

 

I have done this just recently by using PCMover via the LapLink USB cable very successfully, but it is not free, in my case though as I had over 60 GIG of data to transfer it was worth the relatively small cost.

 

Transfer

Hmm! Thanks for your reponses.

I am happy with XP until it becomes obsolete so I suppose I could just clone from my IDE HD to the SATA HD.This itself poses problems because the new PC would probably have no IDE connections. Adapters?

And does upgrading from XP to 7 involve re-loading everything? If not I could clone and upgrade using the 7 installation disc provided with the new machine. Sounds too easy to be feasible.

 

Have a read here, on how to transfer data, settings and programs.

http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/pcmover-professional/

 

Thanks again for all inputs.

Perhaps I could use a different approach.

What If I buy a base unit with a SATA HD already installed with no OS and a spare SATA HD slot. Can I then add my old Maxtor IDE HD (with appropriate jumper settings) via a IDE/SATA adapter and use MaxBlast to clone the HD onto the SATA drive? This would give me a SATA drive with XP . I don't think I need an OS upgrade.