SATA drive and XP (no service pack)

[gholaglider]

I'm having a problem with XP not correctly recognizing my HD.

Here's the situation: My boot.ini got deleted. i physically uninstalled the two SATA drives from my comp. i then physically installed a blank, spare SATA drive into the comp. i then installed XP on that. what i was trying to accomplish was to get my comp up and running, and to then attach my previously installed HD into the comp and then drop a new boot.ini file in it.

Problem though is that XP is reporting the new and old drives as 137 GB. On top of that, when i installed the HD with the missing ini file, XP is saying that the drive needs to be formatted (that it is RAW file format). If it's relevant, the BIOS is seeing the drive correctly.

Did I do something incredibly dumb here? why is XP not seeing the data on the other drive? I've been having trouble installing a service pack on the comp. Will a service pack install fix the problem?

Any help would be appreciated. TIA.

 

[robisbell]

you're going to have to make a slipstreamed cd with SP2 installed, that's the only way to get it back.

 

[practor]

Im not sure on this. But, should running a xp repair help?

 

[robisbell]

he needs to slipstream so he can use the drive as one partition. oh, and he'll need to make sure his BIOS supports 48bit LBA.

 

[Billb2]

No, he needs to slipstrean an XP sp2 install because only XP sp2 or later has SATA drivers native.

The OP's setup, new drive W/WinXP sp? (not 2), old drives W/WinXP sp? (not 2), can't recognize any drives as Sata drives (Windows is treating them a IDE). Hence, no more than 137GB, and can't see the old drives. He must have had pre-sp2 SATA drivers installed before the boot.ini incident.

And why in the world is he doing all this messing around when he could just use XP's Repair Consul to edit/repair the existing boot.ini or just write a new one???? ...impetuous boy he is!

 

[Denithor]

XP SP1 cannot handle disks larger than 137GB. You have to slipstream SP2 into your copy of Windows XP and then burn a new OS install disc (just follow the directions in the link). XP SP2 recognizes and properly uses drives >137GB.

 

[gholaglider]

i'll give it a try. thanks for the help!

 

[robisbell]

Originally posted by: Billb2
No, he needs to slipstrean an XP sp2 install because only XP sp2 or later has SATA drivers native.

no, Sp2 does not, I have SP2 and it does not support SATA.

 

[RebateMonger]

Windows XP SP1 and SP2 will recognize drives larger than 137GB.

To be sure of success, install XP using a slipstreamed XP SP2 CD and either use the SATA IDE emulation mode (in the BIOS), or hit F6 during the initial XP installation process and feed it a floppy disk with the correct XP driver for your SATA controller.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Windows XP SP1 and SP2 will recognize drives larger than 137GB.

To be sure of success, install XP using a slipstreamed XP SP2 CD and either use the SATA IDE emulation mode (in the BIOS), or hit F6 during the initial XP installation process and feed it a floppy disk with the correct XP driver for your SATA controller.

Correct answer. Several other posts in the thread didn't have right info, so I wanted to highlight this.

 

[btcomm1]

Like others have said, you should slipstream it.

 

[SunSamurai]

Oh by the way if no one mention you shoul------STFU PEOPLE.

 

[Fardringle]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
Oh by the way if no one mention you shoul------STFU PEOPLE.

Very helpful and informative post. Would you mind providing step-by-step instructions for locating and running this "STFU PEOPLE" process in Windows XP so that gholaglider can use it to resolve his problem? :roll:

 

[gholaglider]

thanks, all, for the technical help.

i'm gonna try the slipstream and hopefully i'll get this resolved.

i have question though. once i've successfully done this, when i attach one of the previous SATA drives will XP not only recognize the drive but will the data on the drive be available? i was assuming that it would work like an IDE drive, where you just install it and the OS would just pcik up the data on the attached drive. are there any other steps i need to take for access to my files on the other SATA drive?

thanks again.

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
Oh by the way if no one mention you shoul------STFU PEOPLE.

Robisbell, that you?

 

[cubby1223]

Wow, there's a lot of wrong information in this thread.

Service Pack 1 corrected the 127gb limit.

You can install XP without service packs then install SP2 and see the full capacity.

You can install XP without service packs onto a sata drive, you just need the sata drivers on a floppy disk during the install.