XP clean install to a SATA drive

F

fredw

I recently did a motherboard and HD upgrade and am prepared to reinstall
WinXP (slipstreamed with SP2) from a CD. I do not want to mess with a repare
install; so I will removed the IDE drives from the system.

I want the Boot and System partition to be C: If the SATA HD is the only HD
in the system, will it be recognized as C:? And after XP is installed ,
can I add an IDE drive with my FAST archive.
 
J

John R Weiss

fredw said:
I want the Boot and System partition to be C: If the SATA HD is the only HD in
the system, will it be recognized as C:?

Yes. Depending on your SATA controller, you may need to install drivers via
floppy at the F6 prompt on installation.

And after XP is installed , can I add an IDE drive with my FAST archive.

Yes. Make sure your BIOS is set up to boot from SATA first.
 
F

fredw

My BIOS supports the SATA, so I should not need drivers on a floppy. And, my
BIOS will allow me to pick the boot order.

Should I delay product activation until my hardware is stable? I'm planning
on immediately adding the IDE HD, after clean install to the SATA HD is
complete. That IDE HD will contain FAST archive files, backup files, and
other uncompressed data; I'm just nervous about losing that data!
 
J

John R Weiss

Whether or not you will need SATA drivers on installation depends on your
controller. It's a Windows issue, not a computer issue.

My Promise SATA controller treats even a single HD as a RAID "array" (RAID 0
stripe with 1 HD), so the RAID drivers must be loaded on Windoze installation.

Once you get XP loaded and running on the proper boot disk, there should be no
problem with activation. Adding additional HDs should not affect activation.
 

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