nLite SATA driver install on existing XP installation

upatickupatick
edited June 2010 in Science & Tech
Have a DX38BT Intel mobo with XP installed. Two SATA II drives are in use but working as IDE drives. I'd like to improve I/O speed by installing the SATA driver but have not been successful. nLite appears to be a viable alternative but I'm concerned that the existing XP SP3 installation with all updates already installed will be adversely affected by using the nLite XP installation with drivers included. Will I have to reapply all the updates? Will my applications, desktop, etc be adversely affected?

I've tried using the XP installation disk with F6 and the SATA drivers on a floppy which appeared to install properly, but when I change the drive type in BIOS from IDE to AHCI or RAID and reboot I get the blue screen. After setting BIOS entry back to IDE the PC boots normally.

I've also tried disconnecting the two SATA drives, installing an IDE drive and installing XP from the installation CD with F6 and the SATA driver on diskette which installed XP fine. After I plugged the SATA drives back in and booted off the IDE drive the SATA drives still worked in IDE mode. I then changed the BIOS entry back to AHCI and booted to the IDE drive and the blue screen appeared again, probably because the IDE boot disk isn't AHCI. So, I unplugged the IDE drive and booted to the SATA drives while the BIOS entry remained AHCI and the blue screen again appeared. Returning to the BIOS and resetting the drive to IDE and rebooting to the SATA drives (that is, back to the original setup before starting this journey) the PC again boots fine and the SATA drives operate as IDE drivers and run very slowly.

I'm not sure if the nLite approach is appropriate next or if there is a better way to get the SATA drives to use the SATA drivers rather than the IDE drivers. Sounds like a simple task but I just can't get there. Please let me know if nLite is next or if there is a better way to get the SATA drives to use SATA drivers.

Thank you for your assistance.
Chuck

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited June 2010
    If you're going to load SATA drivers from a floppy, install the OS with ACHI enabled in the BIOS. You can't switch from IDE mode to AHCI mode without jumping through hoops in the registry.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited June 2010
    In theory, you can install the AHCI drivers, use sysprep to "reseal" the OS (plenty of tutorials out there, google it), switch from IDE to AHCI mode in the BIOS then Windows will do the heavy lifting on next reboot. No manual mucking about in the registry required. This is only theoretical, of course, I've never done this myself. I've used sysprep to successfully move disks to new systems before, never to move from IDE to AHCI though.

    The problem you're running into with the XP install disk is this: you're loading the drivers but that only loads them for the installer. Sounds to me like you are then quitting the installer and booting your existing Windows install, thus nothing has actually changed. Unless you actually reinstall Windows, loading the drivers from a floppy during setup isn't going to do you any good. The same goes for nLite, you can slipstream the drivers into the disk but you'll have to do a fresh install of Windows off of that disk to actually get them running on your hard drive.

    If you're installing fresh you're better off just having AHCI turned on and loading the drivers off a floppy (or nLiteing them in) right then as Thrax said.
  • upatickupatick
    edited June 2010
    Thank you Thrax and Ardichoke for your responses. If I understand correctly using sysprep is the only way to switch to ACHI without disturbing the existing installation. I was hoping that nLite would enable switching to ACHI without disturbing the existing OS installation but that doesn't seem to be the case. Next stop is sysprep tutorials.

    Thank you both again.
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