SATA drive + Laptop + No floppy

[chipy]

i bought a HP dv5000t laptop not too long ago and i'm going to reinstall Windows XP Pro. i start the process but then the XP Pro setup says it doesn't detect a hard drive. i assume that i have to load the SATA driver, which i can conviniently get off of HP's website. the only thing is, the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive.

can i load the driver using a usb thumbdrive?

thanx in advance!

btw, i referenced this thread but it didn't say how to load the driver.

 

[Aarondeep]

Try slipstreaming the drivers on to the CD. I have found this way to be the easiest way to get the files you need into the CD.
Here is a how-to @ MaximumPC

 

[chipy]

Wow, pretty detailed stuff. Thanks aarondeep!

 

[RebateMonger]

For XP, if you need a drive controller driver, the only way to get it is either with a floppy dirve or by slipstreaming the driver into your XP Install CD.

Many motherboards offer an "IDE Emulation Mode" that allows Windows to install using its built-in IDE drivers. That's how I always do it when dealing with SATA drives. You can't do this if your're trying to boot off a RAID array, but I doubt you are using RAID on a laptop.

Vista allows you to use USB drives and CD/DVD drives to load drivers during the install.

 

[chipy]

thanks RebateMonger. i think i will try slipstreaming either manually or by using nlite. i'm not sure if my laptop has an IDE emulation mode.