Installing OS and drivers on a new rig

[Ronin13]

I'm about to put together a new rig with these parts:

Antec P150
ASUS P5B-E Plus (965e chipset)
Conroe E6600
Corsair PC6400C4 RAM, 2 GB
WD3200KS SATA hard drive
Plextor 760 SATA DVD burner
eVGA 8800 GTS
X-Fi Xtreme Gamer

I prefer to ignore the driver disks that come with the hardware and instead get the newest drivers from the manufacturer's site.

Here's my plan (inspired by mechBgon, post #2 in this thread):

Install WinXP Pro (with SP1)
Install SP2 (already downloaded) from a CD
Enable Automatic Updates and DEP
Install motherboard drivers
Install graphics drivers
Install audio drivers
Install Comodo firewall and Active Virus Shield
Go to Windows Update

Questions:

1: Should I have any problems booting and installing from a SATA DVD drive?
2: Just to be sure, I should use NTFS, right?
3: Will WinXP be able to format all of the 320GB hard drive upon installation? (I know I'll propably have under 300GB after formatting, but wasn't there at some point a problem with disks over a certain size?)
4: As for chipset drivers, what do I need from this list?
Obviously, I won't need the Graphics Drivers, but what about the RAID/AHCI software? (this is going to be a single hard drive setup, so no RAID.)
I assume I need the INF update utility, but do I want the exe or the zip?
5: I remember using the Intel® Application Accelerator on previous builds. Do I also need it for this one? (Since it doesn't show up on the 965e list I linked to above.)
6: Getting motherboard (chipset) drivers and software from Intel's site, should there still be something I would want from the disk that comes with the ASUS board?

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[ojai00]

1. As long as your SATA DVD drive is recognized by the BIOS then you should be able to boot from it.

2. NTFS should be the way to go.

3. Windows XP SP2 should be able to recognize your entire 320GB drive. This problem was supposedly fixed with Windows XP SP1.

4. You can get all the chipset drivers from Asus' website.

5. I have used the Intel Application Accelerator in the past and did not find a good use for it. I believe it is only used for RAID partitions.

6. You shouldn't need the disk.

You may be interested in slipstreaming your drivers and SP2 into your Windows XP CD. See Unattended Windows XP installation.

 

[Ronin13]

Thanks a lot for answering all the questions!

So you think it would be better to download the motherboard/chipset drivers from ASUS instead of Intel?

Since I don't plan on using RAID (and I'm not counting on having any use for the SATA hotswap ability of AHCI), should I just set the SATA mode to IDE?

 

[ojai00]

I don't know what is best practice but I usually download the chipset drivers from my motherboard manufacturer's website

I don't use RAID or AHCI either, but I forget what I set my SATA configuration to. Sorry

 

[Nothinman]

3: Will WinXP be able to format all of the 320GB hard drive upon installation? (I know I'll propably have under 300GB after formatting, but wasn't there at some point a problem with disks over a certain size?)

If it's a SATA drive it shouldn't matter, the old pre-LBA48 problems were PATA only.

 

[Ronin13]

*bump*

And please take a look at these SATA questions.

Thanks!

 

[archcommus]

I would stay away from the Intel Application Accelerator, shouldn't need it at all. You also shouldn't need any apps specifically on the Asus disc unless you're interested in their proprietary temp monitoring software, stuff like that.

There are a lot of INF update utilities on that site and I doubt they are all necessary to run. In my experience, you do not need to install ANY motherboard/chipset drivers except for maybe drivers for your onboard ethernet. You certainly do NOT want to install the motherboard's audio, graphics, or IDE drivers. FWIW, I have not installed any motherboard/chipset drivers except for ethernet in any of my systems since the VIA days.

 

[Aikouka]

Make your life easier and slipstream SP2 into your Windows XP install. In fact, if you really want to be lazy, use nLite to incorporate drivers into your install .