Booting gtom SATA?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jw
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J

jw

Is there a special technique to facilitate installing XP from a SATA
CD drive? In my case, during the initial part of install, it would
fail, and I think it may be due to lack of drivers for the SATA CD
drive which of course would not be loaded yet. How could they be?

Duke
 
Is there a special technique to facilitate installing XP from a SATA
CD drive? In my case, during the initial part of install, it would
fail, and I think it may be due to lack of drivers for the SATA CD
drive which of course would not be loaded yet. How could they be?

Duke
Click to expand...

Full make and model number of computer ?

Or...

Full make and model number of motherboard ?

Some SATA interfaces will require the user to press F6 during installation,
followed by presentation of a floppy diskette with a SATA driver.

Many modern motherboards (say, with an Intel chipset), can have
the SATA port set to "IDE" mode in the BIOS, after which, the OS
can be installed with nothing other than drivers present in WinXP SP1
or higher. No floppy needed.

On older motherboards, there are modes such as "native" or "compatible",
and the compatible mode can even take an installation of Win98 or
Win98SE without a fuss.

So there are many possibilities, and different answers for
different pieces of hardware.

On modern motherboards, sometimes selecting "AHCI" in the BIOS,
followed by pressing F6 and offering an AHCI driver from
a floppy, is the best practice. This is because, the AHCI
driver may offer future abilities to migrate to RAID, and
also supports features such as hot-plug, which can be useful
if an ESATA bracket (for connection of an external drive) is
added to the computer later. So while there are choices that
simplify the OS installation, such choices may hobble the options
available to the user later.

And that is why is sometimes pays to understand what future
aspirations the user might have, such as adding a RAID
array, migrating the OS to a RAID array, and so on.

Paul
 
Is there a special technique to facilitate installing XP from a SATA
CD drive? In my case, during the initial part of install, it would
fail, and I think it may be due to lack of drivers for the SATA CD
drive which of course would not be loaded yet. How could they be?

Duke
Click to expand...

You say "during the initial part of the install...". Does this mean that
the system starts out booting from the CD and then later stops reading from
it? I've managed to install XP onto at least two systems which were
equipped with SADA CD (well actually DVD) drives with no extra steps. If
yours is not going through the process properly my first suspicion would be
that the system's BIOS is not up to the task. Reflashing may or may not fix
that. I tend to avoid flashing unless I know for sure that doing it will
fix some definite glitch after a couple of "death by flash" incidents.
 
Paul said:
Full make and model number of computer ?

Or...

Full make and model number of motherboard ?

Some SATA interfaces will require the user to press F6 during installation,
followed by presentation of a floppy diskette with a SATA driver.

Many modern motherboards (say, with an Intel chipset), can have
the SATA port set to "IDE" mode in the BIOS, after which, the OS
can be installed with nothing other than drivers present in WinXP SP1
or higher. No floppy needed.

On older motherboards, there are modes such as "native" or "compatible",
and the compatible mode can even take an installation of Win98 or
Win98SE without a fuss.

So there are many possibilities, and different answers for
different pieces of hardware.

On modern motherboards, sometimes selecting "AHCI" in the BIOS,
followed by pressing F6 and offering an AHCI driver from
a floppy, is the best practice. This is because, the AHCI
driver may offer future abilities to migrate to RAID, and
also supports features such as hot-plug, which can be useful
if an ESATA bracket (for connection of an external drive) is
added to the computer later. So while there are choices that
simplify the OS installation, such choices may hobble the options
available to the user later.

And that is why is sometimes pays to understand what future
aspirations the user might have, such as adding a RAID
array, migrating the OS to a RAID array, and so on.

Paul
Click to expand...

I thought of the F6 possibility just now as I was standing in the shower
but I see that you beat me to it.

I'm certain that my latest build required no assistance in getting through
the installation procedure. Perhaps the default BIOS settings were such
that it saved me the annoyance. I did install the entire load of INTEL
chipset drivers and such after the OS was installed but since I don't use
RAID on it any sophisticated SATA capabilities are probably lost on me.
 
You say "during the initial part of the install...". Does this mean that
the system starts out booting from the CD and then later stops reading from
it?
Click to expand...

Yes indeed - at the end of the preliminary phase of loading things.
I've managed to install XP onto at least two systems which were
equipped with SADA CD (well actually DVD) drives with no extra steps. If
yours is not going through the process properly my first suspicion would be
that the system's BIOS is not up to the task. Reflashing may or may not fix
that.
Click to expand...

Now that's a thought.
 
Full make and model number of motherboard ?
Click to expand...


MACHSPEED K8M8MSR2-VC
Some SATA interfaces will require the user to press F6 during installation,
followed by presentation of a floppy diskette with a SATA driver.
Click to expand...

May be. But I don't have such a FD.
Many modern motherboards (say, with an Intel chipset), can have
the SATA port set to "IDE" mode in the BIOS, after which, the OS
can be installed with nothing other than drivers present in WinXP SP1
or higher. No floppy needed.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check that.
 
MACHSPEED K8M8MSR2-VC


May be. But I don't have such a FD.

I'll have to check that.
Click to expand...

That is a Jetway board, and the Southbridge is VT8237 (VIA). Drivers
are available from viaarena.com if needed in the future. (Board
is K8M800/VT8237/S754 with two IDE and two SATA connectors.)

http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/motherboard_view.asp?productid=94&proname=K8M8MSR2-VC

(English manual, RAR compressed)
http://216.185.128.200/temp/jetway0c/downloads/manual/G03-K8M8MSR3A.rar

PDF page 45 mentions copying files from the CD to a floppy, using
another computer. They're suggesting you'll need to press F6 and offer
drivers.

What I'd try, is first enter the BIOS and see if there is an option to
disable RAID mode for the SATA interfaces. That is about the best
you could do there. You could try a Windows install without pressing
F6, see if Windows can see the drive on its own. If your WinXP CD
is SP1 or later, there is a PCI address space SATA driver included.
Maybe that driver will work.

If that doesn't work out, you'll need to offer drivers, somehow...

I have a VT8237S here, but I don't know if it is exactly the
same as your older VT8237. Mine supports SATA2.

And also, on that note, with the VT8237, you should install the
"force" jumper on the back of your SATA drive, to get it detected.
Look for "8237" in the following article. There is a bug in the
VT8237 that may prevent a 3Gbit/sec SATA interface from being
detected. My Seagate drive has room for two jumpers, and one of
the jumpers is the "force 150" driver, suitable for usage with a
VT8237. My VT8237S fixes that bug, and my SATA drive works with
or without the jumper installed. But the VT8237 will need the
drive to be jumpered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata

Paul
 
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