SATA driver in setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rich Barry
  • Start date Start date
I got a new motherboard but it looks like there is no SATA driver I can make
as floppy disk in the motherboard's CD.
Can I use other motherboard's SATA driver? I guess SATA driver is pretty
standard for all during the Win XP setup.
eg. I got ASUS motherboard and made a floppy disc for SATA driver in my old
system so that I can install the SATA driver when I was asked if I got mass
storage media or SCSI drive in the first few screen in XP setup.

I visited the motherboard's website found out the SATA driver was 40 MB in
size so I don't believe I can use this in Win XP setup as floppy disk cannot
accommodate it, except Win XP can read USB port when asking me to specify if
I want to install mass storage media during the very first phase of
installation.
 
Alan said:
I got a new motherboard but it looks like there is no SATA driver I
can make as floppy disk in the motherboard's CD.
Can I use other motherboard's SATA driver? I guess SATA driver is
pretty standard for all during the Win XP setup.
eg. I got ASUS motherboard and made a floppy disc for SATA driver
in my old system so that I can install the SATA driver when I was
asked if I got mass storage media or SCSI drive in the first few
screen in XP setup.
I visited the motherboard's website found out the SATA driver was
40 MB in size so I don't believe I can use this in Win XP setup as
floppy disk cannot accommodate it, except Win XP can read USB port
when asking me to specify if I want to install mass storage media
during the very first phase of installation.

Sure you need a driver?

What is the make/model of the motherboard?
 
Sure you need a driver?
What is the make/model of the motherboard?

Hi,

I remeber when I install XP, in the second or third screen it asks if you
have a mass storage or SCSI hard disk, then you need to press F6?
Then it asks you to put in floppy disk to install the driver.

As I have SATA harddisk so I think I need a floppy to install the driver.

But I think the driver will be pretty standard.
I had a ASUS motherboard and the CD came with it has a folder to make a
floppy for that purpose.

Now my new motherboard is ECS A740GM-M. I looked at the CD I found there is
a folder about the harddisk driver but has NO install.bat or mak.bat, it has
readme file about: AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Driver Diskette

The structure:
Files:
ahcix64
ahcix86
readme.txt
txtsetup.oem
Subfolders:
x64
x86 ->ahcix86.cat
ahcix86.inf
ahcix86.sys


Should I copy the whole lot into a floppy disk?
 
Alan said:
I remeber when I install XP, in the second or third screen it asks
if you have a mass storage or SCSI hard disk, then you need to
press F6? Then it asks you to put in floppy disk to install the driver.

As I have SATA harddisk so I think I need a floppy to install the
driver.
But I think the driver will be pretty standard.
I had a ASUS motherboard and the CD came with it has a folder to
make a floppy for that purpose.

Now my new motherboard is ECS A740GM-M. I looked at the CD I found
there is a folder about the harddisk driver but has NO install.bat
or mak.bat, it has readme file about: AMD AHCI Compatible RAID
Driver Diskette
The structure:
Files:
ahcix64
ahcix86
readme.txt
txtsetup.oem
Subfolders:
x64
x86 ->ahcix86.cat
ahcix86.inf
ahcix86.sys


Should I copy the whole lot into a floppy disk?

Just because you have a SATA drive does not mean you need to load a SATA
driver (F6) during the installation. ;-)

However - in your case...

Looking here:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pr...tegoryID=1&DetailName=Driver&MenuID=1&LanID=0

Downloading the 60MB file and unzipping it...
In the path /AMD/SB7xx/Floppy/XP3264/ --> copy all that to an empty floppy
diskette.

Should be what you need.
 
Just because you have a SATA drive does not mean you need to load a SATA
driver (F6) during the installation. ;-)

However - in your case...

Looking here:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pr...tegoryID=1&DetailName=Driver&MenuID=1&LanID=0

Downloading the 60MB file and unzipping it...
In the path /AMD/SB7xx/Floppy/XP3264/ --> copy all that to an empty floppy
diskette.

Should be what you need.


If I recall my memroy correctly, I need to install the SATA driver otherwise
the XP cannot recognise the SATA HDD. Then the XP cannot be installed on the
SATA HDD. Am I correct?
 
Alan said:
If I recall my memroy correctly, I need to install the SATA driver
otherwise the XP cannot recognise the SATA HDD. Then the XP cannot
be installed on the SATA HDD. Am I correct?

Not necessarily. Many SATA controllers will work fine without using the F6
install. It's usually the RAID controllers (like yours) that need the
driver during the installation - if they are set to RAID or AHCI in the
BIOS.

Many SATA drives/SATA controllers will work fine (allow Windows XP to
install and run without issues) with a change in the BIOS (SATA operation to
Legacy, for example.)
 
Alan said:
If I recall my memroy correctly, I need to install the SATA driver otherwise
the XP cannot recognise the SATA HDD. Then the XP cannot be installed on the
SATA HDD. Am I correct?

It is possible to install WinXP SP1 or later, on a SATA drive, without
an F6 floppy. It all depends on the mode the interface is set to in the
BIOS.

The F6 floppy is likely needed, if the interface is in AHCI or RAID
mode.

The manual contains poor documentation of the BIOS interface.

http://eudownload.ecs.com.tw/dlfileecs/manual/mb/eng/k8/A740GM-M(2.0A).pdf

PDF page 38 mentions

"SATA Configuration" [ Disabled, Compatible, Enhanced ]

My *guess* would be, compatible places the device in the I/O space, and
enhanced places it in the PCI space. Those correspond to two default
drivers in WinXP SP1 or later. Compatible uses IRQ14,15 and limits
operation to four storage devices (as if the SATA drives were on two
ribbon cables). Enhanced should allow all ports to be used.

"Onboard SATA Mode" [ IDE, ??? ]

They don't state what other modes are available. If the only mode
is IDE, then I wouldn't expect to need an F6 driver floppy.

OK, so now I'll download the 60MB "driver floppy". LOL.

http://eudownload.ecs.com.tw/dlfileecs/driver/mb/raid/ati/4_raid_AMD.zip

In the AHCI section, these are the devices and modes supported.
My guess is, the 60MB package covers a couple Southbridge types,
with up to three modes covered by the AHCI driver provided.
There is also a RAID package in the download, which looks to be
Installshield (so I can't look inside). So I can't see what VEN/DEV
is used for RAID.

%NapaDesc%=Napa_Inst,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4380&SUBSYS_43811002
%NapaDesc%=Napa_Inst,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4381&SUBSYS_43811002

%NapaDesc%=Napa_Inst,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4391&SUBSYS_43911002
%NapaDesc%=Napa_Inst,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4392&SUBSYS_43921002
%NapaDesc%=Napa_Inst,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4393&SUBSYS_43931002

If you were really interested in VEN/DEV info, and matching
that to drivers, you could boot a Linux LiveCD first, use
"dmesg" and "lspci" to discover more details about the
hardware. Then, change BIOS settings, and list the details
again. Then, you might discover whether your motherboard and
chipset correspond to 4391,4392,4393 etc.

The numbers are documented here, on PDF page 11.

http://developer.amd.com/assets/43366_sb7xx_bdg_pub_1.00.pdf

Bus 0:Device 11h:Function 0

Native/Legacy IDE Mode 4390h
AHCI mode 4391h
Non-Raid-5 Mode 4392h
Raid5 Mode 4393h
AMD AHCI mode (uses AMD 4394h <--- perhaps an important distinction
AHCI drivers instead of MS for Vista.
drivers)

So the F6 floppy seems to cover 4391,4392,4393. The default Microsoft
driver *may* cover 4390. Native=Enhanced, Legacy=Compatible.

Copy the contents of the XP3264 folder to the floppy.

When the copy is finished, a top level listing of the
floppy should show...

txtsetup.oem
readme.txt
ahcix64
ahcix86
x86 (folder)
x64 (folder)

But that is only necessary, if a non-IDE mode is being used.

Just a guess,
Paul
 
Alan T said:
I got a new motherboard but it looks like there is no SATA driver I can make
as floppy disk in the motherboard's CD.

Maybe your mobo doesn't need one, or maybe the necessary is included
in one of the other driver installations.
Can I use other motherboard's SATA driver? I guess SATA driver is pretty
standard for all during the Win XP setup.

VERY unlikely. A driver is an adapter: one side talks to your
hardware, the other side talks to the Windows OS. The Windows OS side
will be standard, dictated by Microsoft. But the hardware side will be
unique for each device. If all devices talked the same language,
drivers wouldn't be necessary!
 
Alan T said:
If I recall my memroy correctly, I need to install the SATA driver
otherwise the XP cannot recognise the SATA HDD. Then the XP cannot be
installed on the SATA HDD. Am I correct?

XP includes drivers for most all SATA drives. Only if the drive came
with a driver disk AND says it must be used for all installations should
you worry about F6 drivers. Just go ahead and plug in the drive to the
SATA data and power cables and start the computer: I'll bet it adds the
new hardware and the most you might have to do is go to Disk Management
to assign a drive letter to it.
In my case it looked like the drive wasn't there at first so I went to
Disk Management, and there it was, but without a letter assigned to it.
Soon's I assigned a drive letter, it was visible in Explorer, as
expected.
Making a SATA drive bootable also isn't likely to require an F6 load.
I did one a couple weeks ago that all I had to do was go into the BIOS
and tell it SATA-0 was a boot device, and I was done.
If you're starting with a blank, formatted disk, I think it's even
easier - just insert the XP CD, set your partitions if any, and
continue. So far I haven't had a chance to experinece doing it that
way.
SATAs can be a bit of a pain sometimes but it's not about the F6
load. If you MUST use an F6 load, the drive's documentation will be
quite specific about it. I haven't seen such a thing yet here, but I've
seen docs about it a time or two.

HTH,

Twayne`
 
PA Bear said:
OT: Your post's headers (Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512)
tell us that the computer is not fully patched at Windows Update.
Check-in at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com ASAP!

You should: Worry about your own store and stop giving orders to those
you cannot. You're quite a narcissist to think you can order others
around as you try to do. Give advice maybe, but direct orders? You're
a moron not even in disguise.

Twayne
 
Twane, You're the one with the tude, deal with it.
I do not take what PA Bear posted as orders, just good advice.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Back
Top