Installing Windows XP onto SATA without Floppy

[Gargoyle]

Is it possible to install Windows XP onto a SATA HD without having the drivers on a floppy disk? I don't have a floppy drive, and the PATA drive Windows was installed on just suffered a catastrophic failure.

The board I'm installing on is an Abit NF7-S.

Thanks!

[Black Hawk]

Not a solution but more of a question. Why is it that XP's installation doesn't support SATA?

I know about the problem but didn't think much of it when I bought my stuff and I went to install XP. The drive I used was a 250GB WD SATA drive and the XP installation identified it just fine. Is it a board thing? NF7-S being one of the first boards to introduce SATA, I guess that's the reason. But why?

[Thrax]

I think it may be the controller used by the NF7-S 2.0. I was astounded when my dad installed XP to his DFI SLI-DR without so much as using a disc. I've never figured out the discrepency. I broke down and had to slipstream the controller driver into my disc.

[Mt_Goat]

Thrax hit it. Just slipstream it with nLite (http://nuhi.olmik.net/new/nLite-1.0.1.installer.exe). It is very easy to do. ;)

[Gargoyle]

Cool, I'll give it a shot. It's better than driving to the nearest town with an electronics store ($15 in gas) and buying a floppy drive I might use once a year ($10-$20). :thumbsup:

[Gargoyle]

Well I certainly appreciate Thrax and Mt_goat pointing me towards nLite. It was super-easy to use, and the Isoburner program the FAQ recommended is really handy, too. :thumbsup:

Unfortunately, I coudln't get the prepared disk to recognize my SATA HD. I followed the instructions on the page, but maybe the drivers they recommended aren't actually the ones I need? Could someone who has done this before on an NF2 board walk me through what they did, and which drivers they used?

Thanks,
Garg

[Mt_Goat]

Did you use the drivers for the intall disc (the ones on the floppy)? The ones for in Windows won't work. Once you have it up and running you can update the drivers. Try the ones in I have put in the zip file as they are the ones that come on the floppy.

NOTE:
I changed the drivers in the zip file to the ones from the floppy and not from Abit's site. They have never failed me.

[Gargoyle]

Hey, those did the trick! Thanks Mt_goat! Those look to be the same ones I've used before to install the SATA after already installing Windows, too. Why I didn't just use them to begin with, I don't know :)

Windows is installing pretty quick on the SATA drive, too :thumbsup:

[Thrax]

Glad you got it all sorted out, sir. :)

[TheSmJ]

I know with my board one just needs to set the SATA channels to "IDE" mode in the CMOS setup, and Windows will install to the drive just like it was on a plain PATA interface, but you'd be stuck to 150 MB/s max.

Once Windows is installed with the correct drivers, you'd set the channel back to SATA mode, and Windows will detect and boot with it correctly.

[Gargoyle]

Hmm, that'd be handy. I don't think my board has an IDE mode setting, though.

You know, with my love of outdated electronics (turntable, tape deck, and a betamax player I've been drooling over at a local junk shop), you'd think I'd have a floppy drive to install drivers with. But no, that'd be useful. I'll take my antiquated gizmos in useless flavor, thank you very much. :)

[TheSmJ]

They're only like $6 on Newegg...

[Thrax]

Floppies are useless. I've done everything in my power to have a floppy-less home for the last 3 years. I'm glad they finally went the way of the dodo.

[Gargoyle]

Floppies are useless. I've done everything in my power to have a floppy-less home for the last 3 years. I'm glad they finally went the way of the dodo.

Well that explains it. I used to have a couple of floppy drives in a box, but I guess they were eaten by hungry sailors. Poor things had no natural fear of humans...

[TheSmJ]

Only times I need them is when I'm stuck working on a box that is incapable of booting from USB, or I need to load RAID drivers onto a system to install Windows.