SATA Hard Drive setup held needed

netdumdum

Hi,

I have just bought a new sata hard drive, I currently have windows installed on my ide drive.

I want to install windows on the sata drive but unfortunately dont have a floppy drive so am unable to install the drivers via floppy during Windows XP Pro setup.

How do I find out what drivers I need and how do I put them on a cd along with Windows???

Please help!

patwa_2

Hi, is your computer built by yourself or bought from someone else?

You'll need to know the make and model of your motherboard and you'll then be able to know which drivers you need. I had an Asrock P4V88 and really didn't want to have a floppy drive with my system (I built it myself) but had no choice as that board needed drivers for the SATA/RAID setup.

Sometimes when you switch on the computer the motherboard logo will flash on the screen, then in the first few seconds you might be able to see the model of the board. I've heard that pressing the Break key can pause the boot process giving you tinme to read the screen, but this was back in the Win98 days so not sure if it'd work for you.

If you're still unsure, I hear both Everest Home Edition and Belarc Advisor can inventory your computer and give you a run down of the hardware components. I should add I've never used these before, but they seem to be highly recommended on forums and tech blogs based on Google.

Hope this helps.

H.

Conor_3

netdumdum wrote: »

Hi,

I have just bought a new sata hard drive, I currently have windows installed on my ide drive.

I want to install windows on the sata drive but unfortunately dont have a floppy drive so am unable to install the drivers via floppy during Windows XP Pro setup.

How do I find out what drivers I need and how do I put them on a cd along with Windows???

Please help!

Easiest way...

(If you've got the drive connected to a SATA 2 controller, connect it to the SATA 1/RAID one. Leave the SATA 2 controller enabled)

Go into the BIOS and change the SATA controller to work in IDE emulation mode.

Install XP - you'll not need any drivers as it thinks it's an IDE drive.

BEFORE YOU ACTIVATE WINDOWS:

Install the Windows SATA controller driver for the one you intend to use and reboot if required.
Shut down Windows, pop into the BIOS and change the SATA controller back to SATA if you're going to use that one or just put the drive on the SATA 2 controller.

Once it's all up and running OK, then activate Windows.

If you actuvate Windows beforehand, you end up having to phone them again once you've swapped the mode over as WPA sees it as a different HDD.