Installing Windows on a SATA hard drive

Oliver

Oliver

Oliver

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I know this has been covered a thousand times and is really simple but I've never really understood it properly. I have a SATA hard drive as my primary drive and I want to reformat. I wish to install Windows XP Pro on it but I keep hearing about the need for drivers and when I go install it, it doesn't see my drive. What are the drivers for, the motherboard?

My hardware is an MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R and a Seagate 80 gigabyte SATA hard drive.
 
when you install and it says press f6 (i think) to install other drivers press it
then put in a floppy with the appropriate drivers on
e.g. silicon image 3112 i think
follow instructions on screen and it should work

should be an sata floppy with the board -maybe
if not make one
 
Worth bearing in mind that when you press f6 Windows does not ask for the floppy to be inserted straight away.

I spent a good few hours thinking my keyboard was broken etc when I first tried to install XP with floppy drivers.

Just press f6 when it says and then wait. You only have to insert the floppy later on in the installation.

Hope this helps...
 
chopchop said:
the F6 method, NEVER worked for me.

use a winxp SP2 cd, dont press f6 and it should install ok.
Click to expand...
That happened to me at first, but then i realised that i needed to plug the hard drive into the other SATA controller on my mobo. It works fine now. Maybe that's why it didn't work for you?
 
mark1 said:
That happened to me at first, but then i realised that i needed to plug the hard drive into the other SATA controller on my mobo. It works fine now. Maybe that's why it didn't work for you?
Click to expand...

nah just about every board ive tried: promise fastrack raid, bx133-raid, nf7s, dfl sli and this asrock. would not accept the driver from the floppy even though it was definately on the disk.
 
The F6 method doesn't work for me as it just plain refuses to recognise that there's a SATA disk there when it asks for somewhere to install Windows. I tried switching to the other SATA connector on my motherboard but it's made no difference. I'm installing with a Windows Pro CD with SP2 and all the updates up to April 2006 and it still doesn't work. When I first installed it my friend put it on some RAID thing, it doesn't detect it with it on or off :( Please help, I need to reformat as my PC is just full of crap and needs a fresh start :p
 
I had a similar problem two weeks ago. I've got an Asrock mobo btw. Anyhow, I disabled RAID in the bios, installed Windows, which operated VERY slowly after installation, but I then installed the SATA drivers through Windows and now it runs like a dream. So I don't know if that's an option to you - i.e. install first, then SATA drivers once in Windows. I have a 120GB and 80GB SATA harddrive - obviously not in RAID!
 
Dodge777 said:
I had a similar problem two weeks ago. I've got an Asrock mobo btw. Anyhow, I disabled RAID in the bios, installed Windows, which operated VERY slowly after installation, but I then installed the SATA drivers through Windows and now it runs like a dream. So I don't know if that's an option to you - i.e. install first, then SATA drivers once in Windows. I have a 120GB and 80GB SATA harddrive - obviously not in RAID!
Click to expand...

It seems to be the case for the ASrock Mobos- even if you don't plan on running SATA drives in RAID, you had best install the drivers, and the drives suddenly pick up speed again. Was wondering why my installation was running real slow too
 
I failed miserably at getting Windows to install on my SATA drive so I jiggled my drives around and now it's installed on an older IDE drive. The trouble is now that my SATA drive isn't recognised in Windows :p Help!
 
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