Q: Putting a Primary Partition for XP on a SATA HDD

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ComputerBox34

[H]F Junkie
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Nov 12, 2003
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Hey guys,

I'm looking to order this SATA HDD:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-135-106&depa=0

This will be my first Sata hard drive and I plan to put games, my OS and some other stuff on here. All my data will be on another hard drive I already have.

My question:
People say that when you put XP on a SATA hard drive, you need to press F4 or F8 at the setup and pop in a floppy that came with the mobo. Well, my mobo didn't come with any floppies but did come with 10 SATA cables. So I'm assuming that I don't need it?

I have a ASUS P5AD2 Premium with BIOS version 1004 I think. (maybe 1010)

Any help is appreciated, thanks
 
You will need to download the SATA driver from your mobo maker's web site. Then when you boot off your Windows XP CD, hit F2 to select a driver. Pop in your floppy and you're on your way to an XP install.
 
S1nF1xx said:
You will need to download the SATA driver from your mobo maker's web site. Then when you boot off your Windows XP CD, hit F2 to select a driver. Pop in your floppy and you're on your way to an XP install.
Click to expand...

ASUS doesn't have any SATA drivers other than the ones for RAID.

This is what I'm thinking:

I had to take my current IDE HD off the RAID slot and put it into the primary channel in order to get the XP setup to see it. I have 6 RAID SATA ports and 2 Primary SATA ports. I'm thinking that all I have to do is plug it into the primary SATA port and I should be set. I've been reading all over the place that people have been puttings OS's on SATA drives without drivers from a Floppy. I'm guessing that the same thing will happen with my mobo. I'm not doing anything special such as RAID or putting in a Raptor, I think it will be alright.

My mobo is also brand new. (came out at the end of last year)

Phoenix, Consultant, you have anything to say on this?
 
Done XP Pro SP2 onto SATA quite a few times and haven't needed a driver disk yet. Used to with XP SP1 when SATA was newer and all, but you probably won't need to now.

Actually, did XP SP1 onto one a while back too. You may need the drivers for the SATA controller, but quite possibly it'll work without anything special.
 
I press F6 in the beginning, then it asks me to insert floppy
 
What happens if you don't press F6?

Goddamnit...anyone else remember on the Commedores, how if you hit the wrong function key for load instead of run you'd have to reboot the damn thing to get it to stop asking for a tape...
 
ashmedai said:
What happens if you don't press F6?

Goddamnit...anyone else remember on the Commedores, how if you hit the wrong function key for load instead of run you'd have to reboot the damn thing to get it to stop asking for a tape...
Click to expand...

It will skip asking you for drivers, and if your sata or eide raid implementaion is not already covered by the xp install disk, it will not see any drives attached to those devices..
 
EDIT: beaten.

another thing you might consider is installing the OS to an IDE drive, do all the drivers, then ghosting or using casper XP to clone it to the SATA.
 
GORANKAR said:
It will skip asking you for drivers, and if your sata or eide raid implementaion is not already covered by the xp install disk, it will not see any drives attached to those devices..
Click to expand...

I know that, I was asking him. If he hits F6 of course it's going to tell him to insert floppy, but he might not need to hit it and if he doesn't try not he won't know for sure. :(
 
lunacite said:
another thing you might consider is installing the OS to an IDE drive, do all the drivers, then ghosting or using casper XP to clone it to the SATA.
Click to expand...

Shit dude, that's a whole lot of work to do to get around a very simple thing...
 
Just install windows normally. Forget about installing drivers. It should work just fine. I know mine did.
 
That's what I said...and I've done it with maybe half a dozen different motherboards and while booting from add-in controller cards by three different companies...
 
XP SP2 sholuld have drivers for the ICH6 (or was it only the ICH5 sata controller?). i'm 90% sure you can pop a sp2 slipstreamed install disc in and it will work without the need of a floppy

it's really quite unfortunate microsoft is so far behind the times in so many areas. wasn't DOS able to read cdroms? and since the initial setup is run under DOS, can't they put some damn cdrom drivers on there so you can read off another cdrom drive? (i'd be happy with that, but if they got around to putting network capabilities on there too then you might have something useful). or maybe i'm just spoiled by opensource, who knows.
 
I can't believe this is still debated. Okay, certain boards, specifically the Intel chipsets do NOT need any special drivers loaded, unless your using the RAID functionality. Some other brand chipsets and some AMD setups do need the drivers loaded from a floppy.

So, the answer is, it depends on your usage and your motherboards chipset.
 
That motherboard should not need any drivers at all. Just boot and go..Did you atleast try it to see if it would work before posting
 
It didn't sound like he had, but hopefully he has now since a couple of us have said to...
 
ComputerBox34 said:
ASUS doesn't have any SATA drivers other than the ones for RAID.
Click to expand...

When I got my Raptor for my ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe, I had to find the SATA driver so I could load them when I booted off the Windows XP CD. I tried it without and it canceled my installation because it couldn't find a HDD.

I had to look quite a while as they didn't come neatly labeld on the CD. I think I had to decompress the chipset driver and find it in there? Can't remember.

That however is a totally different chipset.
 
hulksterjoe said:
That motherboard should not need any drivers at all. Just boot and go..Did you atleast try it to see if it would work before posting
Click to expand...

I don't have the drive yet. I wanted to make sure that I could throw XP onto it before I ordered it. I can't pass up this price and I would like to use all of my current 120 GB for storage instead of useing only 70.

djnes, I have a Intel 925XE chipset so I should be set.

I'm going to check on one more forum and then I'll order. Thanks guys. Maybe I'll get a Raptor in the future once they get bigger.
 
I don't work weekends. ;)

You can likely skip loading the drivers since it's an intel chipset and your not loading a RAID (XP should have it). If not, you'll need to install the raid drivers (even though you aren't setting up a RAID) so the OS will see the drive. Good luck.

 
ComputerBox34 said:
djnes, I have a Intel 925XE chipset so I should be set.
Click to expand...
Correct. You shouldn't need any floppy or special drivers to make it work. Just make sure you load the Intel Chipset Drivers once you get XP installed, and you'll be running fine.
 
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