System with EIDE boot drive and SATA drive on card

I have a system with multiple drives, including a WD-2500JD drive on a
Promise TX-2 SATA card. I presently boot of a WD-1200JB drive on my Asus
A-7V133 motherboard EIDE primary channel. I got the SATA drive with the
idea of using it as the boot drive in the next motherboard I get (eventually
when I can afford to upgrade). Would there be performance penalty using the
SATA drive as a boot drive (loading the SATA card driver during setup so it
recognizes the drive) though I'm not clear how I get rid the old WindowsXP
SP2 install on the EIDE drive. I've got Ghost to copy my boot partition and
so on, but prefer to do a clean install of WinXP and all my programs on
partitions on the SATA drive and use the EIDE drives for data storage. Is
there a way in WindowsXP setup to format my present C: partition and then do
an install in another partition on a different drive? I don't know if there
is performance penalty in using a SATA drive on a SATA PCI card rather than
SATA onboard connectors on a new motherboard. When I do a cold boot I get a
boot menu listing drives though my SATA drive isn't one of them listed (just
lists the WD-1200JB drives as master and slave on the primary EIDE channel
as choices, and my optical drives as boot choices). During reboots the SATA
detection happens after the EIDE drive detection is done in Bios (before PCI
listings during hardware detection). I used to have a dual boot setup with
WindowsXP Home and Windows 98 in another partition back when all my hardware
wasn't recognized in XP though I found XP drivers for all my hardware in
couple of months after release. I've never have had more than one install
of the same version of WindowsXP in two drives at the same time to see if
will even boot or offer me a choice of install to boot from allowing me to
format the other install partition from Windows.
Any advice or help would be appreciated,
Herb

Cyborg-haf wrote in message
...

I have a system with multiple drives, including a WD-2500JD drive on a Promise
TX-2 SATA card. I presently boot of a WD-1200JB drive on my Asus A-7V133
motherboard EIDE primary channel.

I got the SATA drive with the idea of using it as the boot drive in the next
motherboard I get (eventually when I can afford to upgrade). Would there be
performance penalty using the SATA drive as a boot drive

Probably, but likely not a great one.

(loading the SATA card driver during setup so it recognizes the drive) though
I'm not clear how I get rid the old WindowsXP SP2 install on the EIDE drive.

You can just format the drive once you can boot off the SATA drive.

I've got Ghost to copy my boot partition and so on, but prefer to do a clean
install of WinXP and all my programs on partitions on the SATA drive and use
the EIDE drives for data storage.

Yes, there are some real advantages in a clean install.

Is there a way in WindowsXP setup to format my present C: partition and then
do an install in another partition on a different drive?

Yes, tho its safer to do it the other way, do the clean
install on the SATA drive and when thats working fine,
format the EIDE drive and use it for data.

I don't know if there is performance penalty in using a SATA drive on a SATA
PCI card rather than SATA onboard connectors on a new motherboard.

There is some, essentially because the PCI bus limits what the card can do.

When I do a cold boot I get a boot menu listing drives though my SATA drive
isn't one of them listed (just lists the WD-1200JB drives as master and slave
on the primary EIDE channel as choices, and my optical drives as boot
choices).

Thats the bios on the motherboard listing those.

The Promise TX-2 SATA card has its own bios and thats
where you specify the SATA drive should be the boot drive.

During reboots the SATA detection happens after the EIDE drive detection is
done in Bios (before PCI listings during hardware detection).

Yes, thats normal.

I used to have a dual boot setup with WindowsXP Home and Windows 98 in another
partition back when all my hardware wasn't recognized in XP though I found XP
drivers for all my hardware in couple of months after release. I've never
have had more than one install of the same version of WindowsXP in two drives
at the same time to see if will even boot or offer me a choice of install to
boot from allowing me to format the other install partition from Windows.

It can be done fine.

Any advice or help would be appreciated,

The most important question is why bother to boot off the SATA drive ?