Serial ATA Drivers on Windows XP Setup

[Nick Goodall]

Helo All

I've got a Western Digital Serial ATA hard drive and I've
got a small problem with installing Windows XP Pro onto it.

I've got no problems using the F6 option and loading the
drivers from floppy disk, that works fine. The problem I
have now is that I no longer have a floppy drive in my
system.

What I want is another method of providing the drivers to
Windows Setup.

I have tried making a Windows Me boot floppy and putting
the S-ATA drive on the same disk, then making a bootable
CD image from that floppy. Then booing from that cd (which
defaults the cd drive to A: drive, I thought if it has to
load the drivers from A: drive then the cd emulation makes
it drive A which worked fine, loaded smartdrv.exe, then
ran winnt from the i386 folder. It just came up saying
that it could not locate the hard drive.

Tried again and started tapping on F6 straight away, but
it does not seem to give you the option to load any
drivers.

There must be a way of doing this, any ideas anyone?

I'm currently looking at putting the S-ATA drivers
directly onto the Windows XP cd, so it loads them on
starting Windows Setup, or at least checks the cd for them
somewhere along the line.

Thanks

Nick Goodall

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

I've got a Western Digital Serial ATA hard drive and I've
got a small problem with installing Windows XP Pro onto it.

I've got no problems using the F6 option and loading the
drivers from floppy disk, that works fine. The problem I
have now is that I no longer have a floppy drive in my
system.

What I want is another method of providing the drivers to
Windows Setup.

I have tried making a Windows Me boot floppy and putting
the S-ATA drive on the same disk, then making a bootable
CD image from that floppy. Then booing from that cd (which
defaults the cd drive to A: drive, I thought if it has to
load the drivers from A: drive then the cd emulation makes
it drive A which worked fine, loaded smartdrv.exe, then
ran winnt from the i386 folder. It just came up saying
that it could not locate the hard drive.

Tried again and started tapping on F6 straight away, but
it does not seem to give you the option to load any
drivers.

There must be a way of doing this, any ideas anyone?

I'm currently looking at putting the S-ATA drivers
directly onto the Windows XP cd, so it loads them on
starting Windows Setup, or at least checks the cd for them
somewhere along the line.

You shouldn't even need the drivers if you set your BIOS to boot from the
SATA device correctly.

 

[Guest]

Think you missed the point.

When windows is installed it will boot from the drive as
normal, it's set to boot from S-ata in the bios.

It's on the actual install of windows I'm concerned about.

If I run windows setup and do not specify any extra
drivers on the text part of the install, then it just
comes up saying there are no storage devices found on the
system.

Nick

 

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

The only way I know to do this is to set up an unattended installation
and use the $oem$\$1\textmode mechanism. See
<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00107.html>
for how I got this to work with third-party SCSI hardware. Serial ATA
should work exactly the same way.

But note that I was using a network-based install. In theory,
something similar should be possible when installing from CD-ROM, but
I know of nobody who has actually managed to get it working. (I
myself have not tried, because I always install systems from the
network.)

- Pat

 

[Guest]

Many thanks Pat, I'll try this tonight after work, and
post how I get on.

Nick Goodall

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

Think you missed the point.

When windows is installed it will boot from the drive as
normal, it's set to boot from S-ata in the bios.

It's on the actual install of windows I'm concerned about.

If I run windows setup and do not specify any extra
drivers on the text part of the install, then it just
comes up saying there are no storage devices found on the
system.

Nick

No. That was my point.

I have installed several systems with SATA and none required any special
drivers during the installation as long as the BIOS was setup correctly.
However, that also assumes a decent motherboard, I suppose.

 

[Guest]

Tried this last night, worked like a charm.

Have only used it for the S-ATA drivers, not the chipset
and graphics ones as in the guide. I just wanted it to
load the drivers so I can install without floppy disk.

Many thanks again.

Nick

 

[Guest]

Shenan:

Can I ask what you would class as a decent motherboard?
Just wondering as the last two boards I've had Abit, and
now Leadtek, have both needed drivers loading on windows
setup this way for the S-ATA support.

Quote:
"You shouldn't even need the drivers if you set your BIOS
to boot from the SATA device correctly."

Whats that reply got to do with the question anyway? If I
set the bios to boot from SATA, then how is it going to
boot from the windows xp install cd? It's just going to
boot, or not as the case would be, from a blank hard disk.

I have now resolved the problem, from the actual help from
the other person who replied to me, by integrating the
drivers onto the xp install cd.

Nick
"Just trying to be helped (without any sarcasm)"

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

Shenan:

Can I ask what you would class as a decent motherboard?
Just wondering as the last two boards I've had Abit, and
now Leadtek, have both needed drivers loading on windows
setup this way for the S-ATA support.

Quote:
"You shouldn't even need the drivers if you set your BIOS
to boot from the SATA device correctly."

Whats that reply got to do with the question anyway? If I
set the bios to boot from SATA, then how is it going to
boot from the windows xp install cd? It's just going to
boot, or not as the case would be, from a blank hard disk.

I have now resolved the problem, from the actual help from
the other person who replied to me, by integrating the
drivers onto the xp install cd.

Nick
"Just trying to be helped (without any sarcasm)"

There was no sarcasm intended. If you took it that way - I apologize.

 

[Guest]

It did seem like you were talking to me as if I was
stupid, so yes it did take it that way.

Thanks for the apology, and as I said the problem is now
solved, so all is well.

Regards

Nick

 

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

Wait, are you saying you got it working for a CD-ROM based install (no
network share) ?

If so, would you mind writing down exactly what you did? I have some
reports from people who tried this and failed, and I would like to
point them in the right direction.

Thanks!

- Pat

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

Wait, are you saying you got it working for a CD-ROM based install (no
network share) ?

If so, would you mind writing down exactly what you did? I have some
reports from people who tried this and failed, and I would like to
point them in the right direction.

Thanks!

http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/index.htm

If you follow that, integrate all of patches and add the drivers into the
$OEM$ directory...

Seldom will it fail.

 

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/index.htm

If you follow that, integrate all of patches and add the drivers into the
$OEM$ directory...

Seldom will it fail.

Actually, it will always fail if XP lacks built-in drivers for your
hard disk. (I am referring to the kind of drivers you load by
pressing F6 during Setup, not the kind you can simply drop under
$oem$\$1 and set OemPnPDriversPath to find.)

The procedure for adding these "textmode" drivers in Windows 2000 is
documented at <http://support.microsoft.com/?id=288344>. This
procedure includes creating a $oem$\textmode folder and adding
[MassStorageDrivers] and [OEMBootFiles] sections to unattend.txt.
None of this is mentioned on msfn.org, which is how I know this topic
is not covered there.

The Win2k procedure does not work on XP without some adjustments,
which is why I bothered to write
<http://mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00107.html>.
That works for network-based installs; I am (still) wondering if the
original poster got the CD-based analogue to work as well.

- Pat
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

Actually, it will always fail if XP lacks built-in drivers for your
hard disk. (I am referring to the kind of drivers you load by
pressing F6 during Setup, not the kind you can simply drop under
$oem$\$1 and set OemPnPDriversPath to find.)

The procedure for adding these "textmode" drivers in Windows 2000 is
documented at <http://support.microsoft.com/?id=288344>. This
procedure includes creating a $oem$\textmode folder and adding
[MassStorageDrivers] and [OEMBootFiles] sections to unattend.txt.
None of this is mentioned on msfn.org, which is how I know this topic
is not covered there.

The Win2k procedure does not work on XP without some adjustments,
which is why I bothered to write
<http://mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00107.html
.
That works for network-based installs; I am (still) wondering if the
original poster got the CD-based analogue to work as well.

- Pat
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

I realized, after responding originally, that the reason my CD likely worked
(other than the fact that perhaps the ASUS motherboard BIOS may have allowed
it in most cases) was that I integrated the drivers from the floppy that
came with the motherboard onto the CD and network installs.

I use both of the Unattended sites I know (yours and msfn) and have combined
them so that the initial install is on the CD if booted that way and from
the network if done that way. I have had no need for the
[MassStorageDrivers] and [OEMBootFiles] when installing the SATA drivers
either way (nor do I press F6.) The CD I use and the install point from the
Network are exactly the same in all aspects except that the CD is made to be
bootable, the winnt.sif/unattend.tx is slightly different(computer name, a
few post-install GUI scripts, etc) and is far less forgiving/correctable.
*grin*

I have used the install from my CD and from the network on Dells, Gateways
and non-OEM SATA motherboards with no need to do much else but start the
process. Admittedly, I say again that all the motherboards were ASUS
motherboards and that the Dells and Gateways surprised me by working from
the CD as they did.