SATA can be a pain
SATA drivers were not fully developed when Windows XP came out thus were not included on the disk. Anyone with SATA drives knows that drivers must be extracted to a floppy disk and F6 MUST be pressed at the beginning of the installation process in order for the drives to be recognized. NLite can integrate the SATA drivers into the slipstreamed installation disk.
Download the latest SATA files from the chipset maker or the motherboard maker. Here are links to the chipset makers for three of the popular SATA chipsets.
PROMISE 20579 SATA Drivers (PROMISE does not host these files. See your motherboard manufacturer website for the latest drivers)
The downloads usually are .ZIP files or .EXE files. These extract to a directory of all the SATA drivers needed pre and post installation. Look for a folder that is named similar to DISKETTE or BOOT drivers. In this folder may be several subfolders. Either by OS or by drive type (IDE or RAID). Point nLite to the OS and RAID type folder specific to your own setup that is desired.
If your motherboard package came with a SATA diskette then transfer the contents of that diskette to the hard drive into a folder.
IMPORTANT. SATA driver packages come with a file marked TXTSETUP.OEM. Place that file in the same folder as the specific .INF that nLite will point to.
It wasn’t clear at first but nLite was asking if the TXTSETUP.OEM was included in the same folder as the .INF file.
Click YES if the TXTSETUP.OEM file is in the same folder. If it isn’t…move it there and re-insert the SATA INF file. Click YES and NEXT.
WARNING: Multiple SATA drivers cannot be added. The installation will crash. The finished slipstreamed installation disk is created for a specific type of SATA chipset and either RAID or non-RAID setup.
Slipstream NVIDIA RAID drivers
Many have problems installing windows to nVIDIA nForce 4 (NF4) RAID controllers with two or more drives in RAID 0, 1, 5 or 10.
On many forums there have been recommendations to download the nVIDIA 5.10 or 6.53 drivers and copy the contents of the IDEWinXP folder to a floppy disk. This folder is 1.7 MB so all of it can’t be copied to a floppy. It is then recommended to copy all the contents EXCEPT for the RAIDTOOL folder.
Unfortunately this folder is also required so a successful solution has been found so you can integrate or slipstream NVRAID drivers into the WindowsXP install disk. It has allowed for a successful installation of WindowsXP on a RAID 0 setup (disk array) on a Gigabyte GA-K8N NF4 nForce4 motherboard.
1) Download the Windows XP/2000 – nForce4 Standalone Kit (6.53) and extract the folder. You’ll be dealing with the nForce standalone_6.53IDEWinXP folder.
2) Find the txtsetup.oem file and right click and chose OPEN. CHOOSE Select the program from a list and then choose NOTEPAD to open the file. Make sure the box is UNCHECKED for always use the selected program to open this kind of file.
Delete the contents of the file. CTL-A to select all and delete. Replace with this (copy and paste between the ………….:
………………….
[Disks]
d1 = “NVIDIA RAID DRIVER (SCSI)”,disk1,
[Defaults]
scsi = nvraid
[scsi]
nvraid = “NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER (required)”
nvatabus = “NVIDIA NForce Storage Controller (required)”
[Files.scsi.nvraid]
driver = d1,nvraid.sys,nvraid
inf = d1,nvraid.inf
dll = d1,nvraidco.dll
[Files.scsi.nvatabus]
driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,nvatabus
inf = d1, nvatabus.inf
dll = d1,idecoi.dll
[Config.nvraid]
[Config.nvatabus]
[HardwareIds.scsi.nvraid]
id = “GenNvRaidDisk”,”nvraid”
id = “*_NVRAIDBUS”,”nvraid”
[HardwareIds.scsi.nvatabus]
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_008E”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0085”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_00D5”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_00EE”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_00E3”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_00E5”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0035”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0036”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_003E”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0053”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0054”, “nvatabus”
id = “PCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0055”, “nvatabus”
………………….
It appears the original txtsetup.oem that comes with the standalone drivers (or unified) isn’t quite right for installing drivers off a diskette and the fact that the RAIDTOOL folder is missing complicates a few things even more thus crashing the installation.
ONE MINOR CORRECTION: Do not select (check) the box by SCSI/RAID in the REMOVE COMPONENTS.
2) When using NLITE to build your slipstreamed disk apply all of the service packs and updates as the guide outlines. It’s during the INSTALL DRIVERS section that the NVIDIA drivers are installed.
Browse to the extracted NVIDIA 6.53IDEWinXP folder and select the NVRAID.INF file that is displayed. Not the bus driver. A new window will open up with two files highlighted NVRAID and STORAGE. Both will have the (REQUIRED) entry. CTRL Click to select both and choose OK.
Answer YES to the question about if a txtsetup.oem file exists and NLITE will slipstream the all the necessary drivers into the install disk.
3) If you haven’t already…immediately upon boot press DELETE to get into BIOS. You may notice that with some nForce4 boards that have both the SI3114 and nVIDIA controller that there are a mess of SATA bios settings.
Refer to your manual to determine exactly which is for what but, as an example, on the Gigabyte nForce4 Ultra SLI board the first set of entries (IDE/SATA RAID) turns on and off the entire SATA controller…be it nVIDIA or SI3114. This must be enabled. The 4 ENABLE/DISABLE entries below that entry are the SATA controllers for the SI3114. Those don’t matter as, if you use the SI3114 headers…setting up a RAID in that bios (F4 on the Gigabyte board) will override the settings.
In otherwords…they are there for eyecandy as most would complain if they were not…even though they really don’t do anything.
The SATA-1 and 2 (and the subsequent primary/secondary bios entries) are for the nVIDIA controller. Set all of these to enable.
4) Press the function key to get into nVIDIA RAID BIOS. F10 in the case of the Gigabyte board. Set up your desired raid structure there.
5) Reboot and have your windows disk in the drive
6) Continue the installation as per normal. I setup my NLITE build as an unattened installation wallked away after creating the first partion and formatting it. 20 minutes later the desktop appeared and built on a RAID 0 array.
Now learn about continuing with NLITE to apply hotfixes and service packs and additional drivers. NOTE: Windows Media Player 10 or DOT NET cannot be slipstreamed with NLITE.
Hotfixes (Windows security updates, cumulative updates and Windows updates) are easily added at the next menu. Simply choose insert and navigate to the folders that the updates were downloaded to.
Select all the updates in that folder and choose OPEN. They will be added to the list of updates and patches to apply.
Repeat with each of the update folders until all the updates, hotfixes and patches have been inserted.
Choose NEXT and the OPTIONS AND TWEAKS menu will appear. GENERAL 1/2 allows for a few simple changes to the installation process and each has a help bubble on mouseover. In otherwords…each will be explained when the cursor is put over the entry.
General 2/2 can basically be ignored unless you really know what you are doing.
The TWEAKS section is more fun. It allows for custom configuration of how Windows appears when installation is done. Each one of the categories has a help file that appears and please TAKE THE TIME to look over each entry carefully before selection.
Click NEXT and nLite asks one last time before beginning the process. Click NO and any one of the steps can be backtracked to. Moving forward in the program after backtracking will leave all other customizations in place but it would be a good idea to double-check along the way.
nLite takes it from here to prepare, integrate, remove, delete and finish the installation files. The time taken for this depends on the computer speed.
The second to last screen shows the final size of the newly created slipstreamed files. Space reduction is shown if any components were removed.
Click FINISH and the next step can be taken. If the ISO option was chosen at the beginning of the nLite process then the program would create an ISO of the slipstreamed files to be burnt to a disk via an ISO burning program. This guide is not yet finished with the installation files so this option was not chosen.
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