Installing XP Pro.

[Ichigo]

Right now I have ONE hard drive(IDE), with XP Pro on it. If I take that out, and stick a SATA drive in instead, and do a whole new XP install, will it work like a format, only in the sense that I get a fresh start with the new hard drive? (Reinstall XP/drivers/programs/etc.)

Also, how do I partition so that I can install XP on its own separate partition? And how large should this partition be?

 

[wanderer27]

If read right, yes sticking in the SATA and Installing XP will be a "fresh" start. You'll have to re-register with Microsoft though.

When installing XP, it will ask you to create a partition that it will format an install to. At this time you can either choose the whole Drive or just a part of it.

Once in XP, you can format/partition the remainder of the SATA drive in the Disk Management Screen.

 

[Ichigo]

Nice. Thanks for the help.

 

[rasczak]

don't forget about the sata drivers as well, they can eb a pain in the rear. if you didn't already get one with the drive, you'll need to put the sata drivers on a floppy. then as you install XP it's gonna ask you if you have a scsi/raid driver to install hitting f6. you need to do this since Xp doesn't natively support sata. after this is done, then proceed with the rest of the install.

 

[firewall]

Do the later versions of Windows(2003, Vista) have native SATA support?

 

[thirdeye]

Windows Server 2003 doesn't, or at least none that I've run into. I can't comment on Vista. Generally you only need the drivers if you're running RAID if not, you can just disable RAID and your BIOS should just treat the SATA drive just like any other ATA drive.

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: thirdeye
Windows Server 2003 doesn't, or at least none that I've run into. I can't comment on Vista. Generally you only need the drivers if you're running RAID if not, you can just disable RAID and your BIOS should just treat the SATA drive just like any other ATA drive.

this isn't the case most of the time, if you are doing a fresh install on an sata drive it will you need to install the drivers b4 hand by hitting f6. otherwise your drive will not be recognized by the os. and you go thru the frustrating experience of wth??