Installing Windows on a SATA drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chuck Dreier
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Chuck Dreier

I know this is a dumb question, but I've been told that if you need to
install WINDOWS on a SATA drive, you had better have a working floppy drive
or else the install can't use the drivers to see the disk. My question is
this - exactly when during the installation process do you install the
drivers, and will they come from the MB manufacturer, or from the HDD
manufacturer? BTW, I'm trying to avoid any surprises ahead of time.
 
Chuck Dreier said:
I know this is a dumb question, but I've been told that if you need to
install WINDOWS on a SATA drive, you had better have a working floppy drive
or else the install can't use the drivers to see the disk. My question is
this - exactly when during the installation process do you install the
drivers, and will they come from the MB manufacturer, or from the HDD
manufacturer? BTW, I'm trying to avoid any surprises ahead of time.
Click to expand...

Very early in the install there will be a line along the bottom of the blue
screen asking for you to load any special drivers.

The drivers will be those for the SATA controller manufacturer (e.g. Silicon
Image) but may well be shipped with the mobo.
As ever there will probably be more recent drivers on the web.
 
Chuck said:
I know this is a dumb question, but I've been told that
if you need to install WINDOWS on a SATA drive, you had
better have a working floppy drive or else the install
can't use the drivers to see the disk. My question is
this - exactly when during the installation process do
you install the drivers, and will they come from the MB
manufacturer, or from the HDD manufacturer? BTW, I'm
trying to avoid any surprises ahead of time.
Click to expand...

If your SATA is on your motherboard, then the drivers
will come from you MB manufacturer. My MB came with a
SATA driver floppy, but sometimes you have to make one
yourself. If memory serves, when you boot from a Windows
installation CD, the first thing it asks you at the bottom
of the screen is if you have any third-party RAID or SCSI
drivers to install.

Just so there are no surprises, boot your PC with a Windows
CD (without actually going through with the install, of
course) to see the exact directions Windows provides.
 
The instructions will read, " Press F6 to load any SCSI or third party
drivers"- at that point, do so- press F6 just once. As windows continues to
load, it will instruct you to insert the floppy containing the drivers. The
floppy will either have been provided with the motherboard, or your
motherboard manual will instruct you on how to extract the drivers from the
installation/software CD to a floppy (from another computer of course).

If you are using more than one hard drive and will be setting a RAID you
will need to create the array prior to doing any of the above- those
instructions are also included with the motherboard.

Good Luck,
Fitz
 
Chuck Dreier said:
I know this is a dumb question, but I've been told that if you need to
install WINDOWS on a SATA drive, you had better have a working floppy drive
or else the install can't use the drivers to see the disk. My question is
this - exactly when during the installation process do you install the
drivers, and will they come from the MB manufacturer, or from the HDD
manufacturer? BTW, I'm trying to avoid any surprises ahead of time.
Click to expand...

Dependingon whcih version of windows, and which motherboard you may not need
to do anything special. Some motherboards with builtin SATA will run just
fine without needing to install drivers, others will, and anything on an
addin card will need drivers. I have winXPpro installed on an WD 120GB SATA
drive plugged into an ASUS P4C800E Delux motherboard, it installed just fine
without the drivers. YMMV....
 
nooneimportant said:
Dependingon whcih version of windows, and which motherboard you may not need
to do anything special. Some motherboards with builtin SATA will run just
fine without needing to install drivers, others will, and anything on an
addin card will need drivers. I have winXPpro installed on an WD 120GB SATA
drive plugged into an ASUS P4C800E Delux motherboard, it installed just fine
without the drivers. YMMV....
Click to expand...
I have WinXP Pro SP1 (streamed) installed on a Seagate 120GB SATA
drive attached to an Asus P4P800 Deluxe - no additional driver necessary.

Roy
 
During the early portion of installing XP from its CD the screen will say
"Press F6 if you wish to install any 3rd Party drivers from a floppy." The
SATA driver comes on the motherboard's installation CD and must be copied
onto a floppy.
 
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