How in the world can you install SATA drivers on XP?

WildViper

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
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I would like to know which genius designed this feature!!!!!

I just bought the Gigabyte 965p-ds3 board and a couple of Sata HDs. I am trying to install a new XP Pro on this system and I can't get the Sata Drivers on.

I copied them onto a USB stick, but XP comes back saying it can't find the floppy!!!

So how do I do this? I only have 1 CD Rom and USB stick. There has to be a way that is not a pain in the you know what.

THanx for any help.
 

WildViper

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
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Thank you for that...however, is there a way I can just go about installing XP since it does recognize the drives? After XP is installed, can I add the Sata Drivers?

Or do I have to do this as the FIRST step?
 

John

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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So a $7 floppy drive is not an option? Some USB floppy drive will work. If you set the SATA controller(s) to normal, native, or IDE mode, you'll lose NCG and hot swap, but you can install without having to hit F6. If you set the SATA to enhanced or AHCI mode you will need to hit F6.
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
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You need a floppy drive. Either that or upgrade to Vista. It supports SATA out of the box. Windows XP doesn't support SATA natively because it is pretty old now.
 

WildViper

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
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I may just have to buy the Floppy, but I really didn't want to go looking for that. It is Old technology.

Anyways, I did slipstream per the instructions, but I am not sure if I have to still press "F6" or should it automatically install the drivers now?

Thanx for help
 

silverpig

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
27,703
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Originally posted by: Shawn
You need a floppy drive. Either that or upgrade to Vista. It supports SATA out of the box. Windows XP doesn't support SATA natively because it is pretty old now.

SP2 does. And SP1a does too doesn't it?
 

AlucardX

Senior member
May 20, 2000
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WildViper: if you did the slipstream correctly, then you don't need to hit F6. When you reach the select drive phase, the SATA's should have been detected.
 

WildViper

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
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Ok, just finished talking to the Gigabyte tech support team.

According to them, you only need to load the drivers if:

1. You are going to do Raid
or
2. You are going to use AHCI(something like that)

Otherwise, in the Bios, with my board(965-DS3) at least, they are "mapped" to IDE.

So after all this trouble, I find out that I didn't need to do anything.

Is there a major difference between AHCI and IDE? speed wise? feature set wise?
 

John

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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WildViper, please see my OP.

NCG was a typo and should read NCQ. :eek:
 

wgoldfarb

Senior member
Aug 26, 2006
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Depends on the chipset, I don't know if either support AHCI out of the box.

They do not. I just did a fresh install of XP SP2 on a new system a few days ago. My SATA HDD was connected to a P5B Deluxe with the SATA ports configured as AHCI. If you do not hit F6 at the right time to provide thefloppy with the AHCI drivers XP shows a blue screen saying something along the lines of "an error was detected, and your computer will be shut down to prevent damage". Or something like that...
 

Mucker

Platinum Member
Apr 28, 2001
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I agree with you Wild, the floppy should have went away a long, long time ago. A $0 dollar, fast, reliable jump-drive (drive and media in a single small unit...gee, imagine the possibilities ;)). Who the hell wants to buy antiquated technology and then buy unreliable media for it to boot. Kill the floppy once and for all......
 

dbarton

Senior member
Apr 11, 2002
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So if I have a laptop (NO floppy) and I want to put XP SP2 on it BUT it has a SATA drive..


.. simply use driverpack.net, and choose the pack called mass storage to make a new XP install disk??
 

m21s

Senior member
Dec 6, 2004
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I have XP SP2 disc I use along with my SATA Raptor drive.

I do not need the floppy, this was taken care of in SP2 wasnt it?

:confused:
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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I do not need the floppy, this was taken care of in SP2 wasnt it?

It'll never be "taken care of" because you need different drivers for different chipsets and since MS releases updated OSes so infrequently there will always be a few years where you'll have to supply drivers via an external medium or integrate them with the install disc and burn it yourself.
 

Frintin

Senior member
Oct 3, 2002
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While I agree that using a floppy disc is so yesterday (have not had a floppy disc in any of my computers for 3 years) I recently broke down and bought one to go with a new Vista build.

I have flash drives and bood cdroms etc but using those is a lot of freaking work. Lotta freakin work +$6 for floppy drive = system with floppy drive
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
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Originally posted by: Frintin
While I agree that using a floppy disc is so yesterday (have not had a floppy disc in any of my computers for 3 years) I recently broke down and bought one to go with a new Vista build.

I have flash drives and bood cdroms etc but using those is a lot of freaking work. Lotta freakin work +$6 for floppy drive = system with floppy drive

Why did you need a floppy drive for Vista? It comes with SATA support.
 

Frintin

Senior member
Oct 3, 2002
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I actually bought it for the parts I am putting into a Vista machine (Intel DG965WH and SATA hard drives...heard some stories about bios on the Intel board etc.)
 

butch84

Golden Member
Jan 26, 2001
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In my experience, XP SP1 and greater supports installation on SATA drives without drivers, but earlier version do not. Whenever I need to install XP on SATA machines, I always use my SP1 disc and it works fine - I just enter a different CD key.
 

Seeruk

Senior member
Nov 16, 2003
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Since SP2, the only chipsets I have ever trouble with is VIA ones. They must have missed the boat when all the others got their ****** together in time for SP2. Everything else is fine and dandy, just make sure you are using install media that has SP2 included and you are covered for all except VIA AFAIK.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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I just make sure I always have a couple working floppy drives sitting around for situations like this... 2 of my 4 systems support flashing the BIOS off flash drive or CDR (my 590-SLI will read a BIOS file off the HD too) but the two older ones won't & its just less trouble.