Installing WinXP with SATA drives but no floppy

[Neeyik]

Must...be...calm....must...stay....calm....

Okay, here's the problem. I've got an Abit AX8 motherboard, 3 SATA hard drives and one knackered floppy drive. I want to install WinXP but, of course, it doesn't recognise that there are any drives present; I've tried slipstreaming the VIA SATA drivers using nLite but that ends up going like this:

(1) First install attempt - recognises drives.
(2) Attempts to format drives - won't let me.
(3) Reboot - no longer recognises drives.

This is my test rig and I've got a big review to get working on pronto, so any help would be appreciated. I'm replacing the buggered floppy anyway, so in the end I can should be able to use the normal WinXP install and floppy with the SATA drivers on it; however, the fact that the hard disks are acting very strangely is worrying me.

 

[London Geezer]

Well i didn't have a floppy drive at all, so i bought a USB floppy drive, and even then i can't use it to reinstall windows (i have a SATA drive too) cause it won't recognise the floppy as being ... there.

So i feel your pain.

 

[Neeyik]

The obvious question is then how did you get Windows installed?

 

[London Geezer]

The obvious question is then how did you get Windows installed?

Well i bought the system like that. I think the guys temporarily installed a floppy, installed windows, then took it off and gave me the system, cause i gave them the specs to build the PC and i explicitly said i didn't want one.

Apparently there is a way to get the BIOS to recognise USB floppy drives, BZB told me (quote: "Activate USB Legacy Drives on the BIOS, Neo, lives depend on it my son"), but i never found how to from the BIOS settings.

 

[silence]

urm....sorry if i sound silly or something, but WTF you need floppy to instal winXP? just go to BIOS and make CDROM first boot device.....

at least thats how i installed winXP on last 10-15 comps for my friends, never used floppy at all....



(maybe i missunderstood something, so sorry for annoyance)

 

[vb]

If you have a serial ATA it goes like that:

1 boot from CD
2 asks if you have any SCSI controllers
3 asks you to load drivers from a Floppy
4 hell, I don't have a floppy for 4 years
5 now, wait a minute, it has to be able to load drivers from a CD...
6 NOT???????????????????????????????
7. F**king MS, stupid a**holes yadda yadda yadda
8 go to the basement, disassemble a trusty P66 and get a floppy drive hope the cable still works, and that you remember how to plug it

PS i think you can format a USB flash drive to show up as floppy, but never tried.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Why not save yourself all the grief and just blow $10 on a floppy drive? :|

 

[karlotta]

Well after you Do get it to install and all Go to the light side and do a slipstream OS setup. you can remove the need for a floppy look up ect. heck you can just put the cd in and walk away. Its keeps my blood pressure down.
http://www.msfn.org/articles.php?action=cat&acid=1

 

[silence]

If you have a serial ATA it goes like that:

1 boot from CD
2 asks if you have any SCSI controllers
3 asks you to load drivers from a Floppy
4 hell, I don't have a floppy for 4 years
5 now, wait a minute, it has to be able to load drivers from a CD...
6 NOT???????????????????????????????
7. F**king MS, stupid a**holes yadda yadda yadda
8 go to the basement, disassemble a trusty P66 and get a floppy drive hope the cable still works, and that you remember how to plug it

PS i think you can format a USB flash drive to show up as floppy, but never tried.

it really needs floppy?
and just for comps with SATA?

M$

 

[vb]

it really needs floppy?
and just for comps with SATA? M$

yeap. next thing they will bundle a floppy with Longhorn.

 

[kyleb]

it really needs floppy?
and just for comps with SATA?

M$

Nah, it is just that standard IDE has standard drivers and MS packs in a bunch of other drive controler drivers but if you don't have a controler compatable with those drivers then you need to provide your own. Tthat goes for SATA, SCSI or IDE raid just as it goes for sound cards, network cards and just about everything else; but obviously you can't install windows without first telling it how to work with the drive controler you are installing though.

But yeah it is stupid that it has to have a "floppy", can't just swap to a cd with the drivers on it.

 

[Neeyik]

Why not save yourself all the grief and just blow $10 on a floppy drive? :|

Already said that I was going to do that but it's money and time that I was hoping to not waste.

 

[wireframe]

Neeyik, (how do you pronounce this?)

Before you splurge on a whole floppy drive, consider slipstreaming the drivers onto a new installation CD (this requires a CD burner and "splistreaming" refers to incorporating things like drivers, service packs, and even 3rd party software to the installation CD). I use slipstreaming quite a bit, updating my original Windows CDs to the current service pack so installations don't have to end with new patches, but I have never slipstreamed drivers. I am too boring to get rid of my floppy drive.

Here is one site/article that tells you how, but there are more: http://www.maximumpc.com/how_to/reprint_2005-01-05.html

 

[Neeyik]

Neeyik, (how do you pronounce this?)

Heh - a bit like "knee-yuh-ik"; it's how an old Spanish flatmate used to pronounce my name. Neeeeyyyiiikk.

Before you splurge on a whole floppy drive, consider slipstreaming the drivers onto a new installation CD (this requires a CD burner).

As I said in my first post, I've tried this but it won't work right; I'm positive that slipstreaming doesn't install of the necessary drivers on this board. Anyway, the floppy drive has been ordered now...

 

[wireframe]

As I said in my first post, I've tried this but it won't work right; I'm positive that slipstreaming doesn't install of the necessary drivers on this board. Anyway, the floppy drive has been ordered now...

Well, Neeeeeyuick... P) sorry about suggesting that then. Typical of me, having read the thread a few days back, promptly forgetting the details, and then nonchalantly reading the last few posts now and not seeing an answer beyond getting a floppy. Are you quite positive you got the right drivers on there and the slipstreaming process was correct? It can get confusing with driver installation packages for SATA and the "stand-alone" drivers that will actually be recognized by the Windows installer.

I should read more before responding. Heh.

EDIT:

One more thought. Have you tried using the Promise SATA channels, if any? I will assume you have verified that they are on the correct header because if they were actually recognized once, they must have had the drivers. Could just be Windows being obtuse. The good news is that I use a similar chipset in the form of VIA K8T800Pro and it does work like a charm once drivers are loaded (used floppy). I did have to mess around a bit with the drive boot order in the BIOS, but that was later when I added a PATA drive as well. Might be worth looking into. There is some SATA/PATA sharing going on in these SATA chipsets and changing the prioroty in the BIOS may help getting the right drive accesed when the driver doesn't understand that it must "tunnel" in the "IDE channel".

 

[hoom]

Don't forget to make sure you have a BIOS new enough to recognise SATA stuff.
I couldn't get it to work for ages until I realised that.

 

[London Geezer]

Bumping an old thread, but somehow, by changing something on the BIOS, now my USB Floppy drive is recognised as the A: drive....

So i guess, if i were to find the bloody drivers for my SATA HD, i'd be able to work it out.

Now the problem is that i have no idea where to find those drives. Don't even know the model of my HDD to be honest. Just know it's a Samsung 160GB SATA hard drive. Can't be bothered to open up my PC again.

 

[sytaylor]

google anything you know about it, or go to the samsung site, and look for all the geeky info on it (or read the crap on from the place you bought it from)... Usually with its specs you can find out which drive it is.

 

[RussSchultz]

Bumping an old thread, but somehow, by changing something on the BIOS, now my USB Floppy drive is recognised as the A: drive....

So i guess, if i were to find the bloody drivers for my SATA HD, i'd be able to work it out.

Now the problem is that i have no idea where to find those drives. Don't even know the model of my HDD to be honest. Just know it's a Samsung 160GB SATA hard drive. Can't be bothered to open up my PC again.

I don't think it's your HD you need drivers for, but the motherboard's SATA controller.

 

[incurable]

Bumping an old thread, but somehow, by changing something on the BIOS, now my USB Floppy drive is recognised as the A: drive....

So i guess, if i were to find the bloody drivers for my SATA HD, i'd be able to work it out.

Now the problem is that i have no idea where to find those drives. Don't even know the model of my HDD to be honest. Just know it's a Samsung 160GB SATA hard drive. Can't be bothered to open up my PC again.

You don't need drivers for the drive, you need them for the controller it's connected to, which may either be part of your chipset or put on your motherboard as a seperate chip or add-in card.

Best place to look for info would be your motherboard's manual, or maybe the driver CD that came with it. Some motherboards actually come with a floppy that already contains the SATA drivers.