Installing XP

[charger]

Hi all

Wondering if i can get some help i started to do a clean install of windows xp pro and have an sata 120gb hard drive however when i say new install on the cd when i boot it up it does not recognise my hard drive even though it was just previously writing stuff to it from the cd. Basically thats where im stuck at atm and cant get any further with installing it until it can recognise the hard drive.
I put it NTFS format but that didnt do anything at all. Are there any settings i have to change in the BIOS for xp pro to recognise its an sata hard drive?

Specs:
AMD 64 3400+ (socket 754)
1gb ram
asus mobo (dont know which one)
120gb hard drive
ati radeon x800 pro
windows xp pro

thnx for any feed back guys.

charger

[Twigman]

sata drivers on a floppy disc?

[Matt1eD]

Try pressing F6 and installing the driver... may work!



Paul will be along soon!

[charger]

Well the problem is this computer was given to me as a gift and was built by a company and it did not come with any Sata drivers for the hard drive so i dont exactly know what to do at this point. Its a Western Digital 120gb hard drive.
Would the website have any of these drivers do they need to be on a floppy disk or a cd - rom drive? when booting?
thnx for any feedback.

[Matt1eD]

Normally it's a floppy, not sure the install process supports CDs at that point. Yup, the website will have the driver.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

[charger]

Well ive found what hard drive i have on the list, but which driver do i pick as there are quite a few of them and i cant quite narrow it down. ty

[Paul Adams]

The problem is that XP does not have a native driver for the SATA controller.

There is no setting in the BIOS other than to enable or disable the controller or specific SATA ports.
There should be nothing relevant from the HDD manufacturer, hard disks do not have drivers themselves - they are just peripheral devices communicated with via the controller.

The controller is key, and without an XP driver you can't start the 32-bit protected mode that Windows requires (it is able to talk to the disk at first because it uses 16-bit real mode).

The F6 procedure is what is required to get the driver you need into memory and copied to the disk so Windows can load it and use it during the bootup process.

Find out the manufacturer of the system or the make & model of the motherboard, assuming the SATA controller is onboard - then you should be able to locate an XP driver for it, copy it to a floppy disk and use it when installing Windows.

[charger]

well i managed to find out the mother board by opening up the case.
its an Asus K8V - Via K8T800
But the thing is dont quite know what driver im looking for exactly there are so many on the website but none have any reference to sata drivers. any help would be appreciated.
ty

[kempez]

With SATA on its own you don't need RAID drivers to install XP

In the BIOS options you need to enable SATA

You may need to set the SATA drive as an IDE drive - so that the BIOS thinks that the SATA drive is an IDE drive and give it an appropriate address

Then once you've enabled, saved and rebooted back into BIOS, you should be able to see the SATA drive a bit further down the BIOS options below you DVD-RW drive

XP setup should then be able to see the SATA drive to install to

[UltraPrime]

I'm having similar problems. However I don't have a floppy drive - is there anything I can do?

[Paul Adams]

I'm having similar problems. However I don't have a floppy drive - is there anything I can do?

AFAIK, in Windows versions before Vista you can only use a floppy disk for 3rd party drivers during install.
(Vista allows drivers on CDs and USB flash drives too.)
The only other option is to slipstream the SATA drivers into Windows setup CD which is not trivial.

Much easier to get hold of a USB floppy disk drive, and just use it when needed.

[UltraPrime]

The only other option is to slipstream the SATA drivers into Windows setup CD which is not trivial.

I'm not afraid of a challenge - point me in the right direction.

[Paul Adams]

I'm not afraid of a challenge - point me in the right direction.

MSFN is a good place to start, they have a very active set of forums.
Here is a sticky thread specifically addressing how to slipstream drivers in Windows.

Under the "MassStorage drivers" heading there are 3 guides linked, but only the first 2 appear to still be alive:
GreenMachine's Guide
raskren's Guide

[killkoy]

edit actualy wrong one, it could be this
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...aid_100137.zip
need to know what the sata controller on your motherboard is called to be sure
might tell you in the bios or during post

[UltraPrime]

Thanks guys. The process seems straight forward enough, it's just making sure I have the correct driver. At this moment in time, I'm unable to restart the PC due to other operations, but I can check that in a while.

However, I'll ask on the offchance - I've got a Medion PC I bought from TRU last month, the device manager shows it as an Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller. Any idea what driver I need?

[Paul Adams]

I've got a Medion PC I bought from TRU last month, the device manager shows it as an Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller. Any idea what driver I need?

Okay, I think if you download this file from Intel, then read this page it should be what you need.

If you search Intel's site for "82801" you can see that this used to be called "Intel Accelerator" or something, before being rebadged "Intel Matrix Storage Manager".

The Docs\readme.txt that gets extracted says:

The Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager is designed to provide functionality for the following Storage Controllers:
- Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 82801GR SATA RAID Controller
- Intel(R) 82801GR SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 82801GH SATA RAID Controller
- Intel(R) 82801GH SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 82801FR SATA RAID Controller
- Intel(R) 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 82801FBM SATA AHCI Controller
- Intel(R) 82801ER SATA RAID Controller
...
2. The system must be running on one of the following operating systems:
- Microsoft* Windows* XP Home Edition
- Microsoft* Windows* XP Professional
- Microsoft* Windows* XP x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows 2000
- Microsoft* Windows* 2000 Advanced Server
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003
- Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003 x64 Edition (NOTE 1)
- Microsoft* Windows* Media Center Edition

The files get extracted to \Driver.