SATA and Windows XP Installation

Hi.

I recently bought myself a brand spanking new Maxtor SATA HDD. I put it
into my system and booted from the Win XP CD. Only to find Win XP didn't
support my SATA controller. I rebooted and hit F6 and then I think it was
"s" to load a driver for my SATA controller during setup. Only to find you
could only load the driver from a Floppy disk...... I was kinda very
frustrated by this since I don't have a floppy drive in either of my
computers. I've never needed to use one for several years ever since I got a
CD burner.
So after borrowing a floppy drive from another computer I got Win XP
installed. Now as no doubt I'll be install Windows XP sometime soon when it
screws up once more. What is the easiest method to go about a clean install
of Win XP in the future? I was thinking of a boot CD with the driver on but
I'm not sure if this would work.

Suggestions please!

Thanks a lot,

Andrew.

So far as I know, a floppy drive is the only way to get a driver into
the Windows installation. You could install the bare Windows install
then image it using Ghost or DriveImage, then you'll never need to go
through that again.

~ Adrian ~

---
"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."
Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)

"Adrian" wrote in message
. ..
So far as I know, a floppy drive is the only way to get a driver into
the Windows installation. You could install the bare Windows install
then image it using Ghost or DriveImage,

or bootitng (.com). Then you get an imager, boot manager, and partition
manager for $30, which you send if you like it.


--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

Unfortunately I am planning to get a new graphics card, motherboard and CPU
in the not too distant future. Plus I'm not really willing to for fork out
$30 on a program when a Floppy drive is only $10.
Thanks for the suggestions though guys.

I really do hate Windows. I never suffer these poor programing oversights
with Linux Why do Microsoft assume everyone has a floppy disk drive, when
I'm guessing a fair amount do without one these days? Oh well rant over.

Thanks everyone! I'll go rethink what I'm going to do here... looks like
I'll be buying a floppy drive though

Later.


"Crimson*" wrote in message
...
If you're not planning on changing out major hardware between reloads, I'd
install WinXP, all appropriate drivers and patches, and any base software
you'll use (Office, AV, etc.) and then use an imaging utility (Ghost,
etc.)
to create a backup image. Then when you need to reload, instead of
spending
hours doing everything, just spend a few minutes restoring your image.

If you're going to be replacing the mobo, you should get a diskette witht
the SATA drivers. Most boards I work with include those on floppy for
XP/2000.

Most recent motherboards allow you to boot using USB devices. You could get
a USB flash drive and use it to load the SATA drivers. The smaller sizes are
very reasonably priced and would come in handy later as a removable storage
device.
Ken'




"Firejack" wrote in message
...
Hi.

I recently bought myself a brand spanking new Maxtor SATA HDD. I put
it
into my system and booted from the Win XP CD. Only to find Win XP didn't
support my SATA controller. I rebooted and hit F6 and then I think it was
"s" to load a driver for my SATA controller during setup. Only to find you
could only load the driver from a Floppy disk...... I was kinda very
frustrated by this since I don't have a floppy drive in either of my
computers. I've never needed to use one for several years ever since I got
a
CD burner.
So after borrowing a floppy drive from another computer I got Win XP
installed. Now as no doubt I'll be install Windows XP sometime soon when
it
screws up once more. What is the easiest method to go about a clean
install
of Win XP in the future? I was thinking of a boot CD with the driver on
but
I'm not sure if this would work.

Suggestions please!

Thanks a lot,

Andrew.

Why on earth you don't have the option to load the driver off a CD
during
Windows setup I don't know.... Grrr @ Microsoft.

Because I suspect at that point, it hasn't loaded the ATAPI/IDE driver
in order to "see" the CD-ROM drive. The point where you insert the
floppy is to early on in the install procedure, it's had little chance
to load any type of driver. No reason why it couldn't load that first
though...

~ Adrian ~

---
"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."
Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)

For what that USB floppy would cost you could buy a USB flash drive that
would hold about 64 Meg or the equivalent of 44 floppies.
Ken'



"Richard Dower" wrote in message
...

"Ken'" wrote in message
...
Most recent motherboards allow you to boot using USB devices. You could
get
a USB flash drive and use it to load the SATA drivers. The smaller sizes
are
very reasonably priced and would come in handy later as a removable
storage
device.

He could buy an external USB floppy drive, they are very cheap now.

"Ken'" wrote in message
...
For what that USB floppy would cost you could buy a USB flash drive that
would hold about 64 Meg or the equivalent of 44 floppies.

Indeed....logic at work.

I like cake. g

LOL!!!

~ Adrian ~

---
"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."
Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)