Loading Windows XP on a SATA drive

Just in case anyone else has this problem and doesn’t want to spend an hour figuring it out…
If you are loading Windows XP onto a computer with a serial ATA (SATA) hard drive, you will have to manually load the SATA drivers.
As suggested on this usenet post, you need to put the drivers on a floppy disk.
Copy the drivers from motherboard support CD *\DriverDisk\SATA\*.* into root directory of floppy disk. (i.e. root directory of floppy disk should contain \pide and \sata folders, txtsetup.oem, etc. files.)
Then, boot system by Windows XP installation CD, when the message “Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver” shows up, press “F6”. Then, press “S” to specify additional device when next screen pops up. Put the driver floppy disk you made in and press enter to continue. If the floppy disk is made successfully, the installation program will ask for selecting driver. Please then select “VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows XP)”.) After SATA driver loaded and Windows XP can recognize the SATA HDD, you can continue to install Windows XP as usual.
This should work fine if you have the drivers on a CD somewhere.
Here’s what not to do:
1) Pull floppy drive from another computer
2) Get lazy and not install the floppy, simply hang it by cables on the side of computer
3) After using floppy, allow the exposed circuitboard to touch the case
4) Watch smoke come from the floppy drive since the power was shorted out
5) Toss floppy drive in the trash





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60 thoughts on “Loading Windows XP on a SATA drive”

  1. At least it was only the floppy.
    $9.99 at your local Fry’s, Burbank I believe, and you are back where you started.
    Luck.
    -lk

  5. Thanks for the info. Even though an hour was wasted. I’m sure it saved me one or two more. thanks again

  6. Wow… this rocks! I was pulling my hair out til 2am last night (I have lots of hair) trying to get Windows XP’s install CD to detect my Seagate SATA drive, but I never thought to go through the scsi/raid menu 🙂

  8. AWESOME!!
    I was about to cry because I thought I would never get my drives to work.
    p.s. Why was your floppy drive dangling by the IDE cables?

  9. hmm knowing this myslef already it failed, i dont know if it was the drivers or setup… but sumthin screwd up… its still not detecting any hard drives “GAH!” i also have long hair and am about to have alot less – i’ve tried 10 different floppys worth of drivers downloaded – surposedly going to work!
    btw the reason i had to get a new hard drive in the first place to replace my IDE 30GB was cause i accidently touched it on the PC case too

  10. This pressing F6 to load drivers from manufacturers stiffy disk works fine. How do I load them of the Windows XP Installation disk, so that Windows recognises the hardware etc.

  11. I had the same problem as you guys, but knew about the winXP drivers on the mainboard cd before I started, so I was ok from the start. Now that I have loaded it all up ok with xp, the thing crashed after a couple of days with message “Unmountable Boot Volume”. Basically the HD had dropped out. I re-installed the drivers for the SATA HD, re-installed XP, and it was god as gold (for a couple of days). It crashed again with the same message about boot volume. My local shop reckons I need a later SATA driver for XP. Anyone know where I can download one of these from?

  13. I’m not able to even get past the “Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration” screen, it goes black after that and just hangs. I wish it was as simple as installing a driver. i’m in week 2 of my ordeal with this new comp

  14. Thanks for this info! I would have been stuck for a while without it. Sad that we have to fall back to ancient technology to enable the use of the most modern technology.

  15. I have a Maxtor 6Y200MO 200 GB hard drive, the XP setup tells me It doesn’t detect any hard drive, and cannot continue, it’s a SATA HDD so my ASUS P4S800D-E motherboard might be the issue, but I can’t find the drivers. Help,.. PLEASE!

  16. i do have a question. If i connect a DVD-CD-Rom drive to SATA port. Do i need some specific configuration?

  17. WHY?! Why is it a bad idea to pull a floppy from another system? thats what i did, the Windows XPinstall screen juss keeps asking for the disk, the disk in the floppy drive!

  18. I am having a similiar problem with my sata drive with windows 2000 and xp. It says that the SETUP file on my hard drive is not a proper windows image but it is a retail disc and I have used it many times before. So I am sure it has to do something with the drive but I need to know what. Any ideas? Please!

  19. For the ASUS P4S800D-E motherboard, the SATA driver folder on the enclosed CD is called F:\Drivers\RAID\SiSRAID\DriverDisk (or another drive letter instead of F:, of course). Put the contents of that folder into the root directory of a floppy disk, just as michael says at the top, and that should work.
    The problem isn’t the motherboard, the problem is that WinXP doesn’t have the SATA drivers built in. Remember the bad old days, when you couldn’t use a CD until you’d installed Windows? And that the Windows installation came on a CD…? Sometimes you need a working computer to get a computer working.

  20. Im currently going through the process of trying to get Windows XP installed on a Seagate 120GB SATA drive. The only problem is that I dont have a single floppy drive in my house, nor do I want to buy one.
    Will this work from off of a CD too?
    Is there a way to slip the drivers into the Windows XP Install CD?

  21. I’m having a very similar problem – XP keeps telling me I have a “hard error” (I suspect a virus) and crashes whenever I want to loook at the details of my Hard drive (SATA 120Gb) or want to download the latest virus pattern. And yes, when I want to start from scratch and delete and create a new partition it will not recognise the hard drive at the start of the setup process…4 days of pulling my hair out so far (yes, lots of it but would like to keep it, no thanks to XP). We are just about to give this a go…Hope it works!

  22. hey , i had serious issues getting xp to install, and every second time i boot up windows crashes. Using a Lanparty NF2 with 160gig sata (seagate) , any ideas ?

  23. Will i need sata drivers if the motherboard supports sata by default? Asus P4P8X motherboard.

  24. You do need the SATA drivers, even if your motherboard supports it. I’m currently in the same boat, having a new SATA drive and not being able to install windows xp on it. I don’t have a floppy drive, don’t even know if I have a floppy disk. I have looked high and low and I can’t see any solution for installing windows XP without having a floppy drive. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  25. If I will still need SATA drivers to install windows xp even if my motherboard supports it, I might as well buy an IDE drive. My motherboard will still be Asus P4P8X. Thanks for the info.

  27. I’ve done this with the drivers for the HDD and the
    Mobo and it’s still a no go. A8V Deluxe (Asus)
    and WD 80GB SATA. I’ve actually had to install
    a IDE HDD (WD 20GB) as a slave to the CD-RW to get
    XP installed to do some work.
    What BIOS configs should I be on?
    Book says make SATA bootable (it is)
    Be in RAID config (it is)
    That’s it. I still get nothing.

  28. I’m getting the same problem.
    I have an Intel D865PERL board and a WD1200 HDD.
    I’ve tried to boot from a floppy in all OS’s since 98SE, tried to boot XP from the CD, and tried to get the files from the Intel Mobo CD onto floppy.
    None worked. Looks like I am going to have to go out again today and buy an IDE HDD!!!

  29. Cool, thanks a billion, I bought a barebones system without having dealt with SATA before. I followed your guidelines and had my system loaded and running in no time.
    Thank you kindly

  30. Thankyou
    I was able to install win 98 second edition with no problem using my seagate sata hard drive. After 16 hours pulling out my dry scalp installing xp media center i installed the promise drive using F6. Yes it worked
    thakyou everyone

  31. THANK YOU!!!!
    wow i spent like 3 hours last night trying to install XP. i couldn’t figure it out and said screw it at about 7am. got up today at 3 and searched yahoo. found your site and within 10 minutes was installing XP.
    so THANK YOU!

  32. A few hours after buying a floppy drive I finally found a floppy-free way of getting XP onto a SATA disk. But you do need IDE disk to start.
    My setup has removable IDE racks, but the essentials are:
    1) Disable SATA in BIOS.
    2) Install XP on a/any IDE drive
    4) Reboot, enabling SATA in BIOS – ensure booting off IDE.
    5) Install SATA / SATA-RAID drivers in XP (if not done automatically)
    6) Use Seagate’s DiscWizard to install 2nd drive as a new boot drive – this copies the XP install to the SATA drive; as the XP install already includes SATA drivers this all works fine.
    7) Remove IDE drive.

  33. Thanks for the clear instructions.
    Setting up my dual-OS system has been bizzzzarre OS role-reversal – Linux installs more easily than Windows XP!

  34. There is no bloody excuse for Windows XP not to have SATA driver included! Even the latest retail Win XP CD-ROM (with SP2 included!) doesn’t bother to add a SATA driver — two years after the introduction of SATA drives to the market! Does MS think that no one buys SATA HDDs? Has anyone told them about this technology? Have they been informed yet that 1.44MB FDDs are OBSOLETE? What genius is responsible for making us buy ancient floppy drives just to install XP?! Unbelievable!

  35. Thanks very much for the info, would have been stuck for a long time trying to get my new drive working!

  36. i got the new gigabyte k8n-F nforce4 mobo and maxtor 200 gb SATA drive.. and obviously was faced with the same problem as you ppl .. but my problem gets wierder.. if i DONT put in the floppy disk which i made from the support cd(which i HOPE ive made successfully).. windows installation STILL detects my hardrive and installs windows on it.. but when it restarts to load windows after successful setup.. it gives some sort of media error.. “unable to read from disk” etc.. and IF i use the floppy to load the drivers it does NOT recognise my hardrive =/…
    another thing if i disable ide/sata RAID functions from perphiral setup in bios it recgonises my hdd as ide6!!!… and then gives me an error saying something like
    “windows could not load because could not read …” … AND STILL WINDOWS does not load.. however when i disable ide/sata raid function it does not load from cdrom if i set cdrom to my first boot device so that i could install windows again on it!.. its INSANE>… im going mad plllzz plzz someone help me out

  37. Hola ! estuve leyendo y finalmente pude hacer funcionar mi K9V SE deluxe con mi disco duro SAMSUNG 80gb instalando el driver proporcionado por ASUS que estaba en el CD de instalacion. Nada mas fue click en MAKEDISK utility del disco y me guardo la informacion necesaria en el disquette. Look for that took into your installation CD.
    Mil gracias.

  38. i have a Maxtor SATA 200GB and i run SISoftware Sandra that tell me that its runing ultradma 5 and its capleble of rum ULTRAdma 6 what i do to resolve the problem, on mobo bios it detect ultradma 5 and i read that it should detect ultradma x for sata, somone can help me

  40. works fine on My AV8 with a Seagate baracuda 200 gb sata.
    Thanks for your help.
    Keep op the good ansvers.

  41. There is a compiled html file (deploy.chm) which may be on your XP cd, or in the Service Pack tools. I copied it to my IDE drive for reference. This MS file describes slipstreaming and setup shares as well as how to use unattended mode OEM preinstalls (pay close attention to the bit about WINNT.SIF). There is a method to create your own bootable XP CDRom with YOUR SATA drivers included. In spite of the fact that blank CD’s are cheaper than floppy disks, I still use the 1.44MB drive to generate the ElTorito boot image for the CD. I have managed to slipstream XPPro with SP1, SP2, Nero6, Tweakui, Adobe6 and registry hacks, and it works well with IDE drives. I am having a problem getting the SiSRaid SATA drivers located in the right directory on the CD
    “%sourcedrive%:\i386\Textmode”
    or
    “%sourcedrive%:\$oem$\$1\Textmode”
    etc…
    I wouldn’t suggest trying this unless you work on computers or load/reload systems on a daily/weekly basis.

  43. Just baught a wd200jd and cannot get xp installed on it im using a kt6 delta mobo and ive got the drivers on a floppy but evrytime after agreeing to the statement with f8 i get cannot find drive four times then if i press a key it blue screens verry confused might try just ghosting my old 2 gig ide drive onto the new drive wish me luck, if anyone can help me please do

  44. I have a seagate SATA disk and I followed all the procedure for “Loading Windows XP on a SATA drive”, but I still having the following error when I try to install windows: “File \RAID\winXP\viamraid.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 2108 in d:\xpsp1\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c”
    Can someone help me with this problem??, please let me know??

  45. my pc equipped with intel p4(3.0),915 motherboard,and SATA hard drive.while installation of redhat linux v9.0 on my pc,the installation wizard is not detecting my hard drive.could u plz suggest any solution for this.
    this is most irritating case for me.pl do help me.
    regards
    varam

  46. Gee, fall on floor laughing. I pulled the “set drive on case boner” in 1996, only it was an $1,800 SCSI hard drive I was using to transfer data to another computer. Didn’t see any sparks, but never again saw that data either!
    Thanks for the installation info.

  47. to those wanting XP SP2 (ie alkor). It sucks. period. if you’ve built your own system and install SP2 it most likely will work at at most half speed within a weekl Let the penguin fly!

  48. I am having a problem installing windows XP on a new system with:
    asus 8AV deluxe
    amd athlon 64 3500+
    seagate 200gb SATA
    windows pro with sp2
    This is totally killing me. I know about booting from the cdrom with the windows disk and hitting the F6 to install the drivers for a SATA drive and copying the drivers to the floppy before that etc. My problem arises when the windows installation asks for the disk with the drivers and i put the disk in, hit enter and it spins a little then returns to the same screen asking me to put the disk from the manufacturer in and press enter. I have tried many different floppies, the windows xp disk or the asus disk with the drivers are not scratched, and i even downloaded the drivers from the website and that did not work. It is as if the floppy drive is not recognizing the disk with the drivers on it. The only thing is I have used the floppy drive to do a search on the A: disk so I know it works. What gives? I don’t know what to do now. Please help.

  49. Homer, I have the same problem, I can’t install SP2, so I installed the XP version prior to SP1, it works.

  50. Installed Western Digital 120GB SATA hard disk today. Plug into mobo (Abit IS7-E (i865PE)), boot with slipstreamed XP Pro SP2 and everything works so fine.

  51. Installed Western Digital 120GB SATA hard disk today. Plug into mobo (Abit IS7-E (i865PE)), boot with slipstreamed XP Pro SP2 and everything works so fine.

  52. I was having the same problem for a number of weeks. I evenm purchased a second hd thinking that the raid wuold figure it out on its own. Found this page, got it to work finally. Now a new problem, the com is tring to boot from the disk after restart. this occured after trying to install mother board driver for eithernet and stuff like that. Any suggestions?

  53. got it to install win xp, after upgrading to sp2 and loading some drivers from motherboard, when booting up it asks for boot disk. please help

  54. I’m a little confused here-I bought a Seagate 80 gig SATA drive and Windows recognized it fine without having to do anything-I didhave to get the latest motherboard BIOS but after I dropped in the drive-XP recognized the drive and installed Windows without a hitch.

  55. I was having the same problem as everyone else. I then followed the steps as mentioned above and it got me a bit further, but now i have a new problem.
    After I copied the drivers onto the floppy and started the installation it finally got past that part I was stuck on. It went through the EULA and even went to the part about partitioning the HD and that it was going to format the HD for NTFS. However, after that it now gives me an error message that the disk may be damaged and to press enter to try again. It does not work so i end up cancelling out. When I start the installation all over the disk still works to get the drivers and it even takes me back to the part where it shows me it already created the \Windows folder and gives me he option to remove that and start over, but then I get the same error all over again.
    Any ideas?

  56. Hey guys – thanks for your posts!
    Here was my problem: Installed SATA drivers from disc by F6 and then wouldn’t cop files accross properly, BSOD etc etc.
    they key is, I was using a branded installation disc as I din’t want to open the new on’es packaging. Used new disc, with SP2 and all was perfect!!

  57. Can anyone tell me how can I install my hdd 80GB SATA in a K8N Neo Planinium (754)??? PLEASE!!!!!

  58. I’ve managed to get to installing the 1st part of XP on the SATA drive and its formatted ok but however when it has to reboot to finish off the installation it just starts all over again and installs from the very beginning?! Whats that all about? It’s not completing the installation..mmm
    Anyone encounted that one?

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