Please help a newb!

[charlieg6]

Hi all,

I'm building my first system, and when I try to load XP, it won't recognize the SATA drive. I looked around here
and saw that you have to put the SATA drivers on a floppy to allow XP to recognize the SATA drive- problem is, I didn't plan on
putting a floppy drive in this machine.

Is there any way around this issue? One other option I have is to install an old IDE hdd that I have lying around... I assume this would
allow me to install XP and then I could install the SATA drive with the CDROM in the XP hardware wizard?

Thanks for your help-
Charlie

 

[PhoenixOrion]

what's your motherboard brand and model?

 

[charlieg6]

I'm running an Abit NF7-S w/ Athlon 2500+ and a HItachi SATA.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

I had to work on 2 abit boards with a hitachi and maxtor drives and I had the same problems with the NF-7 and IC7. I got a lot of info from the Abit forums.

I remember the 2 main pages I had to work on were:

1. Advanced BIOS features: bootable add-in devices,
2. Integrated peripherals: onchip ide device (quite a few changes here), onchip pci device.

 

[charlieg6]

Thanks, I'll head over there and see what they say.

 

[MrChad]

Spend the $10 and buy a floppy drive. Even if you leave it disconnected after you install Windows, it's the simplest and quickest solution.

 

[charlieg6]

Yeah, looks like that is the simplest solution... Thanks for your help.

 

[magratton]

You can also use a USB memory stick I believe....

 

[TheGrandHooHa]

Originally posted by: magratton
You can also use a USB memory stick I believe....

Does Windows XP setup recognize USB sticks? I know that most mobos can boot off of them, but XP Setup may not load the drivers for them that early.

Still, if you give that a try, let us know how it turns out... I am curious.

 

[So]

Doubt that the memory stick will work, just bite the bullet and have the floppy drive. I still don't see why people insist on not having them, unless they are building a shuttle box. They are still the most universally compatible transferrable media standard around.