Installing WinXP from a SATA optical drive... to a SATA hard drive.

[ognabor]

I realize this is a pretty noob question, but I haven't built a system in years and i'm a bit behind.

I'm building a new computer for myself, and I'm gonna try to make it all-SATA if possible. My only concern is the fact that SATA drives aren't detected right away by windows setup. (right?)

I would assume this will make it necessary for me to make a bootable floppy that I can load the SATA drivers from. to anyone who has done this particular type of setup, if you have advice, i'm all ears.

On a related note... isn't it great that floppy drives are STILL required for this? this is the best that technological progression has to offer?

(I've also heard crazy rumors of SATA drives not needing drivers loaded at all... any truth to this?)

 

[KermitM42]

no, you'll be okay.
SATA hdd's are detected in bios and by windows automatically..
i believe you only need a floppy for sata raid configuration.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: ognabor
I would assume this will make it necessary for me to make a bootable floppy that I can load the SATA drivers from. to anyone who has done this particular type of setup, if you have advice, i'm all ears.

Floppies that hold drivers for Windows Devices don't need to be bootable. Only formatted and readable.

(I've also heard crazy rumors of SATA drives not needing drivers loaded at all... any truth to this?)

Depends on whether you have an IDE-emulation mode in your BIOS, and whether your particular OS has built-in drivers for your particular SATA drive controller.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

If you have Win XP SP2 you will not need a floppy with drivers. Any earlier version of Win XP will require the floppy of drivers, unless you "slipstream" them first.

 

[mitchafi]

Originally posted by: Midnight Rambler
If you have Win XP SP2 you will not need a floppy with drivers. Any earlier version of Win XP will require the floppy of drivers, unless you "slipstream" them first.

Don't mean to thread-crash, but I have a post over in the motherboards forum wondering about this. Are you saying there is no floppy/extra drivers necessary for installing a SATA drive if you are running SP2? For instance, I want to reformat my system and start fresh but I have a SATA raptor and I don't want to have to go through the hassle of hooking up a floppy drive/finding the floppy. Are you saying that If I install using an up-to-date WinXP CD that includes SP2, this step won't be necessary?

edit: I am using an Asus K8V Basic (socket 754) motherboard, if that is of any importance.

 

[coolpurplefan]

I kind of had the same question since I've never used SATA.

I think they're saying the newer motherboards and WinXP with SP2 = no floppy required.

That's kind of re-assuring. One of the reasons I went all PATA on my two computers is that reason alone. I didn't know if I could pull it off.

But, I did read that if you have a SATA and PATA hard drive in the same machine, both will fight to become the master drive.

 

[jkresh]

yep sp2 includes sata drivers for most chipsets so a disk with sp2 wont require a floppy for the drivers.
As to the SATA/PATA fighting for master I don't know what you are talking about, sata is 1 drive per port so there is no master/slave issues with it.

 

[mitchafi]

Originally posted by: jkresh
yep sp2 includes sata drivers for most chipsets so a disk with sp2 wont require a floppy for the drivers.
As to the SATA/PATA fighting for master I don't know what you are talking about, sata is 1 drive per port so there is no master/slave issues with it.

How do I find out if my chipset is included? It is an older motherboard as I mentioned (socket 754) so I'm not really sure if they would be.

 

[duragezic]

I have a NF4 Ultra motherboard as well as XP Pro SP2. I recently got a SATA hard drive and went to isntall XP on it, but there were NO drivers on that SP2 cd. I was not using RAID. As I did not have a floppy drive, at that point I was unable to install XP to a SATA drive. However, I used Nlite to slipstream the Nvidia SATA drivers and burn a new XP cd, and that worked perfectly. I wouldn't assume that just because you have XP SP2, that there are SATA drivers built-in. The NF4 was a pretty common chipset, yet XP SP2 didn't have SATA drivers for it. OTOH, when I tried Vista Business 32-bit, there were SATA drivers built-in, so no floppy or slipstreamed disk was required. Though with Vista, you can load the SATA drivers from a flash drive if needed.


There is not really fighting in the master/slave PATA sense. I have two PATA hard drives, both one IDE channel 0, one as master, one as slave (obviously). I also have a single SATA hard drive on SATA port 1. In XP, the IDE0 master always takes "disk 0", the IDE0 slave "disk 1", followed by the SATA as "disk 2". This is regardless of my BIOS settings, where of course I have the SATA has the hard drive w/ first boot priority. Ubuntu 7.04 detects the three hard drives the same way. Not that the numbering of the drives is a problem. However, when I went to install Windows to my SATA drive, it would NOT allow me to install to the SATA drive unless both of my PATA drives were unplugged. THis happened with XP and Vista, and I'm not sure why. So I had to leave the PATA drives unplugged, then it would isntall to the SATA partition.

 

[duragezic]

dp

 

[anarchyreigns]

Originally posted by: duragezic
I have a NF4 Ultra motherboard as well as XP Pro SP2. I recently got a SATA hard drive and went to isntall XP on it, but there were NO drivers on that SP2 cd. I was not using RAID.

I have a DFI NF4 Ultra-D coupled with Windows XP Pro SP2 and a Maxtor SATA drive and it installed fine (multiple times)...without the need to add drivers during the install.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: anarchyreigns
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: duragezic
I have a NF4 Ultra motherboard as well as XP Pro SP2. I recently got a SATA hard drive and went to isntall XP on it, but there were NO drivers on that SP2 cd. I was not using RAID. </end quote></div>

I have a DFI NF4 Ultra-D coupled with Windows XP Pro SP2 and a Maxtor SATA drive and it installed fine (multiple times)...without the need to add drivers during the install.

i have an asus a8n32-sli deluxe and when i had to install xp sp2 on a 400GB seagate 7200.10 sata drive, it installed/detected the hd just fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Midnight Rambler
If you have Win XP SP2 you will not need a floppy with drivers. Any earlier version of Win XP will require the floppy of drivers, unless you "slipstream" them first.

Not true, it depends more on the mobo BIOS. If it has an "IDE emulation" or "compatibility" mode for the SATA channels then you don't need drivers, as Windows will see them as if they are IDE channels.

SATA on NF4 boards, AFAIK, all show up as IDE channels.

Some people may be confused too, since Dell OEM XP SP2 restore discs include more drivers (including NVATA.SYS) than the standard XP discs do.

Otherwise, you need a driver floppy and the "press F6" install method.

 

[Pandamonium]

My understanding is that if the SATA ports are coming from the chipset (IE: not a SiliconImage SATA bridge), you do not need drivers. The drivers are for the chipsets that add SATA compatibility, but if the southbridge (or equivalent) supports SATA natively, "drivers" are a moot point.

 

[Nocturnal]

It depends on your motherboard. Most of the nForce4 motherboards are automatically picked up by a Windows XP install disk.