Installing XP to SATA new build

[ny888]

Ok - this is my first build usually sata drives.

I have Asus p5W DH and 3 sata drives. When I run winnt, it says it does not see a disk with enough space to install xp. My drives are WD 250gb and Seagate 320 gbs.

When I run fdisk, I see 3 fixed hard drives but only 40mb and 42mb for the other 2 drives.

Is there something special I have to do to format and partition these disks before installing XP?

I have booted into the system with a Win98 floppy and have the XP disc in the dvd drive.

 

[Matthias99]

You probably need to provide SATA drivers for your motherboard. Using a WinXP install CD with Service Pack 2 slipstreamed in might also work (since it includes drivers for many newer motherboards). Otherwise you'll need to provide the drivers on a floppy when you are prompted to "hit F6 to provide additional drivers" (or whatever the exact message is).

 

[ny888]

I don't even get that far. After continuing without smartdrv it is unable to locate a drive with the required amount of free space.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ny888
I don't even get that far. After continuing without smartdrv it is unable to locate a drive with the required amount of free space.

...how could you not get that far? It loads the drivers before looking for hard drives, since it may need a third-party driver to find the hard drives.

Edit: reading your OP again, are you trying to boot up in Win98 off a floppy and then run the XP installer? The XP CD is bootable; just have your BIOS boot from CD right into the installer.

 

[ny888]

Matthias - thank you. Sometimes you get so buried in a problem, you can't see the obvious !

 

[Trashman]

Like he stated above, make sure your using XP w/SP1 or SP2 otherwiase you'll have issues with those drives, don't even bother using that floppy win98 thing.