SATA HD problems booting

[tukesmith]

I had a windows corruption on my SATA Samsung SP2504C HD and bought a new SATA HD, Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 to use as my OS. I installed XP on the seagate and it runs. Now, I want to install the samsung and transfer files over to the seagate HD, but the computer won't start windows with both drives connected.
    Seagate HD is selected in BIOS as the boot priority, but it won't give me any options beyond that.
  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[JJ 3000]

You may consider getting a USB to SATA converter to connect the drive to your USB port. Then you can use windows explorer to find the data on the old hard drive.

http://search.cablestogo.com/?qu=usb+to+sata&c=y1

[patio]

If you want to do this as you have stated there are 2 options:
First wipe the new drive and unplug it.
Then using your XP CD do a Repair Install of XP.
Once completed then hook up the new SATA and use the SeaTools utility to clone the now repaired drive to the Seagate drive.
When finished unhook the Samsung and move the SATA connectors for the Seagate to ths SATA1 connector formerly occupied by the Samsung.
Leave the Samsung unplugged for now and re-boot.
If you followed all the steps your old Windows install including data and Programs will now boot successfully off the new drive.
You can now format the Samsung and use it for storage.

The 2nd option is a clean install of everything on the new drive and then migrate the data off the old drive...