WinXP Install On Sata - No Floppy

scott.holmes · 24 Aug 2010 at 19:40

Hi All

I wonder if anyone would be able to help, i am trying to install Windows XP onto a machine with a Sata Drive and no floppy drive. Of course it cant find the hard drive when installing so i cant continue.

I dont have a spare floppy and could do with getting it installed tonight.

Any pointers as to how i might go about doing this? Reading around i cant use the 'F6' method to load from USB stick, which sucks!

Scott

Moredhel · 24 Aug 2010 at 19:54

You need to slipstream the drivers onto the disk, I used to use a program called nLite to do this many years ago when I last used XP.

Found a guide for you: http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstream-sata-drivers-into-xp-cd/

izzy eckerslike · 24 Aug 2010 at 19:58

How old is the mobo ? apparently most new boards don't have specific sata controller chips and don't usually need sata drivers during the xp install process.

info here on how to do it without floppy

http://en.kioskea.net/faq/2544-installing-windows-xp-on-a-sata-hard-drive

wesley · 24 Aug 2010 at 20:02

change the sata controller to legacy in BIOS will fix the problem.

scott.holmes · 24 Aug 2010 at 20:25

Hi

Thanks for all the advice, i tried nLite (first port of call) but was unsuccesful

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R v1.0

I'm using a WinXP Home disk sadly, will that make a difference?

Scott

scott.holmes · 24 Aug 2010 at 20:44

Moredhel said:
You need to slipstream the drivers onto the disk, I used to use a program called nLite to do this many years ago when I last used XP.

Found a guide for you: http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstream-sata-drivers-into-xp-cd/

I tried this again and i dont know what i did wrong the first time but it worked perfectly this time using that guide!

Currently installing Windows XP (Slipstreamed SP3 while i was at is as well, lol)

Thanks!

Scott

SiriusB · 24 Aug 2010 at 22:40

XP supported SATA during install since SP2 I believe. So you kinda solved your problem already by slipstreaming SP3

scott.holmes · 25 Aug 2010 at 07:06

SiriusB said:
XP supported SATA during install since SP2 I believe. So you kinda solved your problem already by slipstreaming SP3

I tried it first with WinXP Home and didnt have a lot of luck, the time i got it to work was using WinXP Pro.

So i messed something up the first time!

Scott