Installing a single SATA drive

[AlexV]

I ordered my first SATA drive, and I'd like to know if I need to install any special drivers first. I did a search, and it seems like all the hits I found we related to setting up a RAID, but I'm not doing that.

I have AOpen nCK804a-LFS nForce4 motherboard, and will be using the onboard SATA connection. I didn't install nVidia's IDE drivers as I've read many posts on that. The only driver I installed from nVidia's M/B bundle was the network driver.

So, my question is whether I'd be able just to plug in the SATA drive, and have it detected in WinXP, or I'll need to install any special drivers.

Thanks,

-- Alex

 

[jmdeathsquad]

you should just be able to plug it in... be sure to check the bios and make sure the port that its on is enabled

 

[AlexV]

Wow, such a fast response, thanks!

Sounds good, I already checked the BIOS, and everything seems either enabled or on auto there, and RAID is disabled. So I guess, I'm all set, just have to wait to receive the drive

-- Alex

 

[jmdeathsquad]

hehehe np... if you wanted to raid 2 sata drives, then you'd need th raid drivers of course. just make sure your jumpers are set to appropriate config and you should be set.

 

[jmdeathsquad]

actually mine doesnt even have jumpers on it...

 

[mikester]

I think you have to have SP1 or SP2 for WinXP to recognize stand alone SATA drives during setup. I'm not 100% sure on this, because I always use a WinXP SP2 slipstream CD I created for installations (so it just works), but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere.

 

[Rotax]

i'm pretty sure winxp will recog the onboard nforce 4 . . i had problems with it doing this when trying to setup my raid (using disk drivers) . . it was using MS cd drivers and NOT my disk drivers. *boggle*

but yeah..should work.

 

[AlexV]

Everyone, thanks for your replies. I'm running XP Pro + SP2 with all the latest patches installed, so I guess I'm all set.

-- Alex