Legit Reviews

When trying to install any version of Windows, it does not recognize SATA controllers without having to install drivers (press F6 during install). Why does MS only look for floppies during install to add drivers? Floppy drives are so outdated.

I was trying to install Windows XP 64 last night and it would not recognize my SATA controller. I had to copy them to a floppy so that I could load them during the install. I don't have a floppy drive installed in my computer so I was using a USB floppy drive. All went well until it was actually time to copy files. I pressed 'F6' using the USB floppy drive, loaded my SATA drivers, Windows saw the drive, I was able to create a partition, accepted the license agreement, and then Windows says put driver disc for my SATA controller in drive A:.

During the "Press F6", Windows recognizes the USB floppy as A: but once you get farther along Windows and more drivers get loaded Windows no longer sees the USB floppy as A: and I assume it is looking directy at the floppy controller once it gets to that point.

I also tried to install Vista last night and of course it still does not recognize SATA out of the box but every Linux distro that I have installed has recognized the SATA controller every time without any itervention from me.

Alister

Man your preaching to the chior. I have been trying so hard to get away from floppies. Thanks to WinFlash i dont need one for bios updates but the sata problem... i dont know how to help you there, the only thing i can think of is manualy adding the sata driver to the disk and slipstream it in to the install.

I know that slipstreaming works for the service packs and all, but I'm not sure if it works of drivers by just adding them. I slipped streamed SP1 and SP2 to my XP Pro disks and it works fine, I think PimpRig or somewhere has a how to on adding drivers to Windows XP.

I have slipstreamed my Windows XP with SP2 using this: AutoStreamer. It is very easy with this. You just put your Windows XP CD, run this software , tell it which drive contains Windows XP, tell it where your SP2 file is located, tell it where you want your output to go, and click the button to slipstream. When finished you have a bootable ISO file and you just burn the ISO file to CD.

There are driverpacks for creating slipstreams DriverPacks BASE and then you can use the driver packs with this: Windows XP PowerPacker. The instructions are in the second link also. I would use this but I need the 64bit drivers because I am wanting to slipstream XP 64. They don't have the XP 64 driver packs created yet.

I just can't understand why free Linux distros have SATA support built in but MS (a multi-billion dollar software company) can't include them with their OS.

Alister

is the floppy controller enabled in your bios?
mayby winbloze is defaulting to that??

Could be that windows doesn't load USB drivers till after insallation (apart from "HID" devices)?

that installation SATA support is really bad...
i installed XP once where it wouldn't boot with the CD
so i used Microsoft's tool to create 7 (or was it 5?) floppies to use before installing XP to gain CD support

i wanted to save my energy and after using the first floppy, i created the second on it (instead of using another floppy) and so on...

except i forgot the F6 thing so i had to do it all over again :/

alister wrote:When trying to install any version of Windows, it does not recognize SATA controllers without having to install drivers (press F6 during install). Why does MS only look for floppies during install to add drivers? Floppy drives are so outdated.

I was trying to install Windows XP 64 last night and it would not recognize my SATA controller. I had to copy them to a floppy so that I could load them during the install. I don't have a floppy drive installed in my computer so I was using a USB floppy drive. All went well until it was actually time to copy files. I pressed 'F6' using the USB floppy drive, loaded my SATA drivers, Windows saw the drive, I was able to create a partition, accepted the license agreement, and then Windows says put driver disc for my SATA controller in drive A:.

During the "Press F6", Windows recognizes the USB floppy as A: but once you get farther along Windows and more drivers get loaded Windows no longer sees the USB floppy as A: and I assume it is looking directy at the floppy controller once it gets to that point.

I also tried to install Vista last night and of course it still does not recognize SATA out of the box but every Linux distro that I have installed has recognized the SATA controller every time without any itervention from me.

Alister

Dumb question: What is Vista???

Thats the new name for Windows "longhorn"

well, don't feel bad CyberWarrior, I have a dumb question too. What is slipstreaming?

Slipstreaming is when you take a service pack, update, or driver and add it to the windows XP install disk.

gotta do it by way of secondary media (floppy, another CD, etc)?

no you copy the XP disk to your HD then apply the service pack or updates and add in the drivers you need. I dont exactly know how to do it but there are plenty of guides out there. Once you have everything copied to the HD you burn a disk and snap your done.

ohh ok. It's just adding something to Windows. And you're right, after I asked the question I went looking for its definition, and found through Yahoo! plenty of slipstreaming guides for WinXP. Gonna have to try that with my system, granted it won't take the DFI drivers for SATA

infinitevalence wrote:Man your preaching to the chior. I have been trying so hard to get away from floppies. Thanks to WinFlash i dont need one for bios updates.

Yeah, WinFlash appears to be a pretty nifty utility. I've been looking at it, and I really do prefer the GUI approach versus the DOS shell to try to install BIOS updates. I need a link to download it though, you got a link infinitevalence?

WinFlash Utility

Lots of other great utilities HERE...

hey blake, is this utility manufacturer-specific?

killswitch83 wrote:hey blake, is this utility manufacturer-specific?

Nope, I've used it on an Abit NF7-S board and on my Chaintech VNF4 Ultra; works great!

suwwweeeet, this is gonna be very handy if I ever have to use MSI mainboards again (cold shiver goes down spine), and even the DFI boards

It is bios specific it will not work on AMI bios, i think it only works with the Award bios.

infinitevalence wrote:It is bios specific it will not work on AMI bios, i think it only works with the Award bios.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that, thanks for coverin' for me

I have an Award Pheonix BIOS on my Chaintech and it worked.