Storage IDE & AHCI

Hi, got an i5 2500k/p8p67 pro build planned this week and was wondering about HDD compatability. Ive got a 500GB(boot) and a 2TB drive in my current c2d machine, both running IDE mode off the p43 chipset. I will have a Crucial M4 128GB for a boot drive in my new machine and want to run AHCI mode on all my sata drives to enable hot-swap on various drive caddies and e-sata ports i have on my case. my question is; will i be able to install the 2TB drive straight off and maintain the data, or will a reformat be necessary? the 500GB will remain in the old rig as the boot drive.

any insights would be helpful, cheers

 

The 2tb will be fine right of the bat

 

ideal, thanks. just wondering though, if i switch my p43 ports to AHCI mode, it will no longer boot off the 500GB drive (hence my original question). is this normal?

 

yep perfectly fine

its only windows installation that would be an issue data drives have no problem

 

cool, thanks a lot. HD pics of final build will be on here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=989658&page=78

 

The OS part is also fixable, Microsoft Article