Can i use a USB floppy drive when installing SATA drivers?

Borden · 7 Apr 2006 at 17:46

Hi all,

Just a quick one, can i use an external floppy drive when installing the extra SATA drivers during the windows installation? I'm not sure on whether it supports a USB floppy drive.

I normally use an internal one but i've just got a new case and my old floppy drive is stuck in the old one

Any help will be great, thanks

uk_viper · 8 Apr 2006 at 00:36

shouldnt see a problem with it considering you can use one to boot of a floppy disk, its really just a case of trial and error, but i doubt there will be any error

Jimathy · 8 Apr 2006 at 12:49

was never able to use a usb floppy on the shuttle sn95g to install the sata drivers at install. always had to resort to the floppy header. i guess if you board has no floppy header then usb would be your only option and as such it would work ok. suck it and see i suppose.

Borden · 8 Apr 2006 at 12:59

Well that's really the only thing i would be using it for and my board seems to be very choosy with things like this so i won't risk it. Saves quite a bit of money as well

Cheers guys

Memphis · 8 Apr 2006 at 13:41

My experience with loading the SATA drivers on XP is that unless it's through a floppy attached to a floppy controller, it won't read it. I have tried a USB drive as well, it wouldn't take it.

bledd · 8 Apr 2006 at 14:11

www.nliteos.com

using that you can integrate your SATA drivers into your windows disc (well to create a new windows disc using it)

best program ever imo

Jimi · 8 Apr 2006 at 14:17

Yeah, nLite truely is a great program. I've managed to reduce my XP 64 disc from around 550MB to 200MB getting rid of all the crap I don't need.

Borden · 8 Apr 2006 at 14:34

bledd. said:
www.nliteos.com

using that you can integrate your SATA drivers into your windows disc (well to create a new windows disc using it)

best program ever imo

Yeh i've made a Windows cd using that but chose not to integrate the drivers as i prefer to do it manually as the first nlite cd i made didn't work with the extra sata drivers.

Thanks once again

JonnyT · 8 Apr 2006 at 14:49

You can use a USB floppy drive to install the SATA drivers during the text mode part of XP setup -I've done it myself - it just needs to be a particular make and/or model of USB floppy drive, due to the limited number of drivers for such drives included in XP's basic setup routine which it loads when loading text mode setup (the first part with the F6 prompt & where you do the partitioning/formatting)

The drive I've used is an old-ish IBM branded drive sold as a Thinkpad accessory, but Windows detects it as a Mitsumi unit, which is listed as one of the compatible drives.

This link on Microsoft's website details compatible drives

Borden · 8 Apr 2006 at 15:07

JonnyT said:
You can use a USB floppy drive to install the SATA drivers during the text mode part of XP setup -I've done it myself - it just needs to be a particular make and/or model of USB floppy drive, due to the limited number of drivers for such drives included in XP's basic setup routine which it loads when loading text mode setup (the first part with the F6 prompt & where you do the partitioning/formatting)

The drive I've used is an old-ish IBM branded drive sold as a Thinkpad accessory, but Windows detects it as a Mitsumi unit, which is listed as one of the compatible drives.

This link on Microsoft's website details compatible drives

Thanks, the two drives that i was looking at were a Sony and a Mitsumi so they woul'd have been supported. But i've already ordered the internal drive.

Thanks for your help anyway, i'll keep it in mind if i ever do buy an external drive

bledd · 8 Apr 2006 at 15:16

you just need to select 'TEXTMODE' as the type when it asks you.

which controller or driver are you using

if it doesn't work, i can get the author to fix nlite for your driver

Borden · 8 Apr 2006 at 15:27

bledd. said:
you just need to select 'TEXTMODE' as the type when it asks you.

which controller or driver are you using

if it doesn't work, i can get the author to fix nlite for your driver

I'm not sure if i selected 'TEXTMODE'. I'm using the Silicon Image controller with the Sil3115 driver (i think).

I could try making another nLite cd but will only be able to test it when i reinstall windows. That might be pretty soon though as i don't like how my pc feels slower than usual

bledd · 8 Apr 2006 at 17:10

either download the latest drivers, or copy the ones you've got from your floppy drive to a folder, (don't split the files up, nlite copies the ones it needs, its not just the inf file)

3115 should def work, as my 3112s work fine