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Orig XP won't install on my 200GB HDs

LintMan

LintMan

Senior member
My original 100GB IDE hard disk, which contained my OS partition, has pretty much croaked. I was running Win XP pro, installed from OEM disk 3 yrs ago, upgraded over time to SP2. I've been using a second HD, a SATA 200GB disk that connects through a SATA add-on card, (I think it's a Promise SATA150 TX2plus) and when my 100GB disk started failing, I purchased a third disk, a 250MB SATA drive, with the intent to use it to replace the old failing 100GB IDE drive.

But when trying to install my original Win XP OEM, it doesn't see either of the SATA drives in my system. I just read that Win XP doesn't recognize 200GB+ disks until at least SP1, so I'm not sure if that's the problem or if it's the SATA add-in card that it's not recognizing, or if both things are/will be issues.

If the SATA add-in card is the issue, I imagine I can find a driver for it to make the XP boot CD recognize it. (I can't access my PC for another few days to try it out, but once I get back to my PC, internet access might be difficult, so that's why I'm asking now). Presuming I can get past that, am I going to get hosed by my original WinXP install disk not recognizing my 200+ GB drives? I'd hate to have to buy a new WinXP Pro w/SP2 install disk just so I can reinstall XP onto my 200GB disk. And I'd also hate to have to buy a smaller HD (< 130MB) to put into my system just so I can install the OS onto it.


Thanks!
 
when installing xp you must press F6 at the appropiate time and insert a floppy disk with the necessary sata drivers.
 
It will still find the drive if it is unpartitioned with the SATA drivers installed using the method the above poster suggested, but when you create the installation partition, you won't be able to make it larger than I think 120 GB (give or take). When you get a service pack on there XP will see the rest of the drive.

If that's going to be a problem, might I suggest creating a custom XP installation CD with SP2 integrated using the slipstream process? You can do it fairly easily using a program called NLite. Hell, you could even integrate the SATA drivers onto this custom CD I think (NLite allows you to add additional drivers to the disk, so this might work, I'm not sure since I've never tried it).
 
Assuming that either one of the SATA drives was retail, it comes with a CD that contains boot-up code, and is able to prepare the disk for use with drivers and partitioning. It should be easy enough to start with 137 Gb's as the primary DOS partition (137 is where XP reaches its limit before SP1), leave the rest "Unallocated" until after SP1 is loaded. Two of the drive utility programs available will combine the unallocated part with the primary part afterwards. Both of those are commercial programs you have to pay for (Partition Magic, Partition Commander).

If the drive manufacturers haven't licensed that part of the utility from one of those two, I would be surprised.

😎
 
Thanks for the help, everyone! It especially sounds like that NLite program would be ideal, if it works like it says. Wish me luck!

-LintMan

 
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