reformating a hard drive

http://forums.hexus.net/operating-s...xp-installing-sata-_without_-floppy-disk.html

everyone at this thread seems to be having the same issue as me, they all need to install XP on SATA discs and without the drivers the installtion refuses to go through (error )....and since they dont have a floppy their only option is to slipstream the drivers.....

 

I'm pretty sure, if your BIOS supports it, you can use a USB key to load the drivers. If you can't do that, just use a USB floppy. Like I said before, you and the rest of those guys don't have the drivers for your SATA controller included in the install disk, so therefore it's not going to install.

 

Goodswipe: You make that sound like a lot. Hard disks have a lower price limit because there are a lot of parts that are the same regardless of capacity. In any case, there's a Hitachi 60GB S-ATA notebook drive there for $50. More significantly, 160GB drives are only $64. I'd hardly call that expensive, especially when IDE drives are the same price, newegg included.
Tripplite: It happens sometimes, but not very often. You'd probably find it a problem most on machines that originally ran Vista, as the drivers for their controllers wouldn't be included in XP's library.

 

If its on an OEM laptop you either have to disable the native sata support or slipstream the drivers... I've found slipstreaming them is probably the best way to do it that way you always have a copy of XP ready to go if something catastrophic happens... Yes you can hit F6 to load sata drivers but it doesn't always work on a laptop keyboard until everything is loaded into the machine, drivers and such.

 

Fair enough...
What do you think the cause of this is then?

I've seen lots of articles that are written as if using a boot floppy disk is mandatory for installing XP on a S-ATA drive, yet others have never had the need to, myself included...

 

All depends on what kind of SATA controller is in your box. Windows (also depends on what flavor) doesn't have support for every SATA controller out there, such as Adaptec SATA controllers. You will run into even more problems with stand-up cards. I've had several LSI controller cards not install due to Windows not supporting the driver. This is when you need to go to the vendors website and download the supported driver, then use the F6 option.

 

Hmm, I thought those were the ones it did have drivers for...
Well so far as I say, the nForce 4 & 6, Intel P35 & X38's southbridge counterparts are all supported, silicon image and Gigabyte's own controllers are as well.

 

Is the system in front of you? If so, go into device manager and look at what kind of SATA controller it is using.

 

Sam, the Intel P35/X38 boards are not supported natively by XP, I have a GM965 which is a 'generation' behind them and had to manually install the drivers... It also depends if the board was made to run XP or Vista. As my machine was made for Vista so I had to install the drivers myself. If it was made for XP then it may have a built in compatibility...

 

Well, what can I say, I've installed XP twice on my X38-DS4 and twice on my P35C-DS3R, to a WD360GD (1) and WD2500AAJS (3), both are S-ATA drives, both had no issues.

 

Ok, never mind then. Either way, the only way IMO for someone to get XP to install SATA drivers, is if the OS is slipstreamed(OEM vendor), or the user downloads the driver for the SATA controller via the vendors website.

Those are just hard drives. What type of controller are you using?

Class is dismissed....

 

the clue is in the first quote - the word older. That perhaps is the answer. Modern S-ATA controllers are designed to work with the drivers built into XP, presumably the older ones aren't - though I can't think why that would be.
Just because you've found somewhere that states you have to manually install controller drivers to install XP to a S-ATA drive doesn't discount all of our evidence. I even know someone with a 965P-DS3 who installed XP without a hitch to a S-ATA drive, isn't that the board you have, goodswipe?

 

/sigh

Let's read through that again, shall we?

Yea, because the controller driver is not included in XP! If they are included, then why do so many people have issues? The only way you get it to work is if you have them slipstreamed.

No that isn't the board I have. I don't even own a pc. I work with servers and storage boxes all day long at work, so getting on the computer to play games is the last thing on my list of priorities.

My whole point of posting those quotes was to show you that NOT everyone can install XP and have support for their SATA controller. A search of Google will show you that 90 percent of the problems people have is trying to install SATA controller drivers on their box that are not there.

Again, what controllers are you using that you successfully installed the drivers for via the XP CD?

 

My problem is fixed now, I just used a floppy to wipe my hard drive. But I had to install sata drivers before I could install windows. My motherboards manual tells how to make a floppy sata driver disk so I just did that and then windows could see my hard drive. Thanks.

 

Oh yea, Sam. I took a look at that MB you were talking about, take a look at this.

Third Party Driver...

 

So you used the controller driver that was supplied with the MB?