Floppy makes me stroppy

[Steve]

When Microsoft were putting together the preinstaller for Windows XP, I wish they'd thought ahead a bit, instead of using exactly the same template as for NT5.

You see, while I actually quite like the XP installation process, the requirement to load 3rd party SCSI/SATA/RAID drivers from floppy disk infuriates me. For crying out loud, I don't even have a floppy drive in my machine, so any time I might need to use it, I have to dust it off and hang it out of the machine, making it look like it's been in a car accident.

Still, there's no point moaning, because I'm far from the first to complain about this. However, I must ask, when XP setup can sit there and list my USB flash drive as one of the available disks for installation, why does it not have a little look for any 'txtsetup.oem' files on it? Wouldn't that make life so much easier?

Failing that, are there any BIOSes out there that can make a USB flash drive appear to the system as a floppy drive? Now that would be cool!

Just like my last blog entry, this one raises more questions than it does provide insight, but I like to get people talking! Now if you'll excuse me I'm busy trying to find a freeware ISO editor so that I can slipstream these NVIDIA RAID drivers into my XP CD.

[directhex]

pretty sure i didn't need a floppy drive to load sata drivers on my linux machines

[Lee H]

I was in the same boat Steve.

I've never used a floppy drive for years and only own one for the purpose of installing SATA drivers when installing XP or Media Centre

So - I found this page here and made a slipstreamed MCE disc/ XP disc and never looked back since then.

I hope for sanity's sake Vista doesn't use a floppy for SATA drivers or the anger demons will arise again

[herulach]

nlite is your friend, just make sure you press yes when it asks if its a sata raid driver.

[dave87]

Mine all have floppy drives in em, cause well, why not? They never get used, but they're there jus in case. And my lovely P160 hides it quite well.... Only thing is the bloody wire, never got round to tidying it up. No window, so no1 sees i suppose.


Dave