How Do You Install Xp Home Sp2 On A Sata Hard Drive


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I already had the Hard drive failing thread but I figured I'd open up a new one to ask this question.

So, how do you install XP Home SP2 on a SATA Hard drive. I know XP has it's issues with installing on SATA drives. I wanna go ahead and be ready for when the new Hard Drive arrives.

Thanks

Edited by Honda_Boy
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Their may be an option in your bios to run your SATA drive in IDE mode. That would be the easiest. Thier may be a very small decrease in performance. Then it would install just like any other drive.

If you want to install the drive in regular SATA mode, goto your mobo manufactures sight and download the SATA drivers, you will need to put them on a floppy. If I remember correctly you have an nforce chipset. You can go directly to the nvidia sight and get the drivers.

this is from the nvidia site

After you have made a sata driver disk, when you goto install windows you will press f6 to load raid drivers(something like that), it will then prompt you to insert your floppy.

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yeah I have an nForce4 SLIx16 Chipset with I guess an nForce SATA controller. The mobo was made by EVGA. I'll download from nVidia since EVGA's old nForce4 boards weren't the best supported in the world.

* of course. Neither the my desktop nor my laptop have Adobe reader. gotta wait for the download to read that .pdf. Man I thought at least my lappy had Adobe Reader.

Edited by Honda_Boy
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whaddya know? I was looking at the box for my motherboard and apparently I already have a floppy disk (I just gotta find it) but it's for if you are using RAID. I don't know crap about RAID but I don't think I'm going to be using it. It is possible to use a SATA drive without RAID by itself right?

*Ok I have absolutely no clue where that floppy is. It's not in the box (which there was a molex Y splitter that I wish I had known about tuesday) so It must be in that little envelope or folder or whatever the heck those CD's and floppies came in.

** I started searching the desk, the file trays, and the drawers downstairs for the disk (that's where the computer was when I first built it) 2 file trays and all the desk nothing. 1st drawer - nothing, 2nd nothing, 3-6 nothing. Heck it ain't down here. Last drawer. I had already found a few floppies but none were my EVGA RAID one. Well a random black one upside down. "Naw this ain't it". Flip it, whadya know. It's the EVGA RAID disk. Of course it was in the very last drawer. I should went bottom to top then it woulda been probably the first or second drawer I checked.

Edited by Honda_Boy
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Even though you are just installing a single SATA drive, you still refer to it as raid. So long as your floppy is not corrupt, you are good to go.

From the nvidia site:

F6 floppy install

-----------------

* Create the F6 install disk by copying all the files from either 'sataraid' -or-

'legacy' folder onto a floppy diskette.

* during installation you must hit F6 key when prompted by OS installer.

* insert driver diskette into the floppy drive and follow the OS prompts

When OS reads the floppy it will show the following:

NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER (required)

NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller (required)

Both of these MUST be installed if RAID is enabled on the installation port. After

hitting ENTER to select one fo these, you must then hit "S=Specify Additional

Device" and then install the other.

If RAID is not enabled on installation drive port, then only "NVIDIA nForce Storage

Controller" is required.

Edited by shanenin
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http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/motherboards/1651_4.html

That's the floppy for installing the SATA/RAID drivers. Just because it is labled RAID doesn't mean you need to enable RAID. The manual should have a section describing loading those drivers for the SATA drive.

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OK this thread was unnecessary and so was looking for that floppy. The XP disc recognized the drive immediately and is formatting as I type this. I thought XP wasn't supposed to be able handle SATA drives so easily trying to install windows on them. What did I misinterpret here.

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Your BIOs is probably set to run the SATA drive in IDE mode. I thought this is slightly less efficient then SATA mode, I am not certain though. You should see if their is an option in the bios to set it to SATA mode.

Edited by shanenin
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Yeah I think it's in IDE mode but I don't care. It's ridiculously fast and I couldn't figure out how to make it work any other way. It's just fine the way it is and I ain't gonna mess with it. I'm in love. SATA drives only from now on. It's so fast. Once that windows logo first pops up, less than 20 seconds my desktop is up. I love it. That windows logo is only up for 2-5 seconds. I'm so ordering another one of these puppies to replace the Samsung with. 2 250GB SATA drives. *Drool* plenty of space and wicked fast operation. I can't wait to see how long it'll take for games to load.

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