SATA Boot Drive

[csm]

I'm building a new system with the following:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB
AMD Ath-64 3800+
1 Gig Corsair XMS DDR 3200 memory
BFG Geforce 6800GT PCI-E VCard
Maxtor 250 Gig SATA 7200rpm SATA drive w 16 Meg Cache

I have never used a SATA drive before as my only drive. So, what do I have
to do to install Win-XP home on
it and get the system to boot from it?

CM

 

[peterk]

copy the Sata drivers from the ASUS CD to a floppy.
set the proper boot order in the BIOS
install XP...............during the install you will be asked early on if
you are booting from a non IDE/SCSI drive push F6 to install drivers.....XP
will only look at the floppy drive for these drivers no where else!!!
continue with the install

good luck
peterk

 

[Mark A]

I'm building a new system with the following:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium MB
AMD Ath-64 3800+
1 Gig Corsair XMS DDR 3200 memory
BFG Geforce 6800GT PCI-E VCard
Maxtor 250 Gig SATA 7200rpm SATA drive w 16 Meg Cache

I have never used a SATA drive before as my only drive. So, what do I
have to do to install Win-XP home on
it and get the system to boot from it?

CM

If you don't have any IDE hard drives, you will have no problem. It helps if
you have the version of XP that has SP2 embedded.

If you are using RAID, then you will need to install the drivers from the
diskette included with the MB. Otherwise, if you are using standard SATA,
you can skip the driver disk.

 

[HarryKrause]

If you don't have any IDE hard drives, you will have no problem. It helps if
you have the version of XP that has SP2 embedded.

If you are using RAID, then you will need to install the drivers from the
diskette included with the MB. Otherwise, if you are using standard SATA,
you can skip the driver disk.

Uh...I'm taking delivery of a system with no OS, but will be putting XP
Pro on it. The system has two SATA drives, but no IDE hard drives. Is
this going to be a problem?

I've not heard of this particular knarly before.

 

[Unicorn]

I have two hard disks on P4C800-E Deluxe , one ATA 20GB, with OS
Windows XP installed from fresh - and the second drive SATA 250GB.
Now I would like to use SATA as my main C:\ drive.
Using Ghost I cloned the IDE drive ATA C:\ to drive SATA D:\ making it
bootable. And it works up to a point, when Windows XP opens and just
before opening my setting window - it stuck...
I check the BIOS setting and configured it as it
should be - removed an old C:\ drive - but still - I cannot
get any further. So far no errors shown but SATA doesn't want
to finish the booting. Is there something else I should do?

JDR

 

[Mark A]

Uh...I'm taking delivery of a system with no OS, but will be putting XP
Pro on it. The system has two SATA drives, but no IDE hard drives. Is this
going to be a problem?

I've not heard of this particular knarly before.

No problem. I recently built one like that myself.

 

[Rob]

I have two hard disks on P4C800-E Deluxe , one ATA 20GB, with OS
Windows XP installed from fresh - and the second drive SATA 250GB.
Now I would like to use SATA as my main C:\ drive.
Using Ghost I cloned the IDE drive ATA C:\ to drive SATA D:\ making it
bootable. And it works up to a point, when Windows XP opens and just
before opening my setting window - it stuck...
I check the BIOS setting and configured it as it
should be - removed an old C:\ drive - but still - I cannot
get any further. So far no errors shown but SATA doesn't want
to finish the booting. Is there something else I should do?

JDR

JDR,
I've heard you can edit the boot loader and get it working. I say
"heard" because I've not done that before. I just Ghost the old C drive
over to the SATA drive, insuring that I've installed the SATA drivers to
Windows before cloning. After the clone I shut down, unhook the old
PATA drive and hold it as a backup for a few days. I run with the new
drive to make sure everything works. Windows now sees this as the only
drive and will call it C:\. When I've checked things out and all is
well, I'll unhook the SATA and reformat the PATA with and old Boot
floppy. Then it can be used as a spare drive. If your old drive still
boots when installed alone, this should work.
Rob

 

[Jdr]

JDR,
I've heard you can edit the boot loader and get it working. I say "heard"
because I've not done that before. I just Ghost the old C drive over to
the SATA drive, insuring that I've installed the SATA drivers to Windows
before cloning. After the clone I shut down, unhook the old PATA drive
and hold it as a backup for a few days. I run with the new drive to make
sure everything works. Windows now sees this as the only drive and will
call it C:\. When I've checked things out and all is well, I'll unhook
the SATA and reformat the PATA with and old Boot floppy. Then it can be
used as a spare drive. If your old drive still boots when installed
alone, this should work.
Rob

Rob,
Thanks ... you just remind me what I have entirely forgot about,
having trouble free but ageing PC...;-) Let's hope it'll work.
Yes, indeed my old drive is in tact and I'll do exactly
as you say. Thanks Rob, again.

JDR

 

[milleron]

No problem. I recently built one like that myself.

Ditto. If I might be allowed to repeat for the sake of clarity.
UNLESS one is installing a RAID system, then not only is the
driver-diskette step not needed, but it should be omitted. One
installing XP without RAID on a SATA drive connected to the _nVidia
controller_ (not the SI3114 controllers) will find that installation
of the OS proceeds exactly as it did with P-ATA drives. In this case,
the RAID controllers should be disabled in BIOS before starting
Windows Setup.

AFTER the OS is installed, THEN it's advisable to install the nForce
chipset drivers, to make the LAN adapter functional and to get the
nVidia IDE drivers, but that has nothing to do with the operating
system's installation. XP SP2's built-in drivers work just fine for
installation, and they work very well for continued use, for that
matter.


Ron

 

[milleron]

copy the Sata drivers from the ASUS CD to a floppy.
set the proper boot order in the BIOS
install XP...............during the install you will be asked early on if
you are booting from a non IDE/SCSI drive push F6 to install drivers.....XP
will only look at the floppy drive for these drivers no where else!!!
continue with the install

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but this appears to be INCORRECT advice
for the situation posed by CM. He's not installing a RAID array.
He's installing his OS on a single SATA drive, and IMHO he'd be well
advised NOT to feed Windows Setup any RAID or SCSI drivers during
installation. (See post by Mark A further down the thread.) Disable
RAID controllers in BIOS before beginning XP Setup.

The only caveat to CM here is to be aware that some A8N-SLI owners
have experienced endless problems with Maxtor SATA drives and were
forced to find and load firmware updates for them or else switch to
Seagate or WD drives. I'm hoping that your new drive will come with a
fix already installed.



Ron

 

[Jdr]

JDR,
I've heard you can edit the boot loader and get it working. I say

Dave,

The boot loader on both HDD ( ATA and SATA) is the same.
As it should be, because it is a mirrored one.
(on SATA)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
.................
(on ATA)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
............
So it must be then some thing else causing the "stuck" of Windows.

 

[Jdr]

Rob,

As I mentioned in other reply eventually I reinstalled Windows
in much shorter time then any previous installation on Win XP
in my experience. SATA is noticeably faster than ATA.

Thanks for help and responses -

JD Ross

 

[Rob]

Unicorn wrote:



JDR,
I've heard you can edit the boot loader and get it working. I say

Dave,

The boot loader on both HDD ( ATA and SATA) is the same.
As it should be, because it is a mirrored one.
(on SATA)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
................
(on ATA)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
...........
So it must be then some thing else causing the "stuck" of Windows.

"heard" because I've not done that before. I just Ghost the old C drive
over to the SATA drive, insuring that I've installed the SATA drivers to
Windows before cloning. After the clone I shut down, unhook the old PATA
drive and hold it as a backup for a few days. I run with the new drive
to make sure everything works. Windows now sees this as the only drive
and will call it C:\. When I've checked things out and all is well, I'll
unhook the SATA and reformat the PATA with and old Boot floppy. Then it
can be used as a spare drive. If your old drive still boots when
installed alone, this should work.
Rob

JDR
I believe the Boot Loader being the same is what causes the stuck
because it can't decide which copy of XP to use, to finish it's loading
process. I think some of the numbers in the default= string have to be
different in each copy of the OS to work but I wouldn't want to steer
you wrong as to which ones to change. It could totally corrupt one or
both OS if it's wrong. That's why I use the drive swap thingy I
described earlier.
Rob

 

[peterk]

I stand corrected..........My Board uses the SI controllers.
peterk