Installing Windows on SATA?

[dizman]

Keep in mind I haven't built a new computer for about a year, year and half.

But I remember back then hearing that it was a pain or almost impossible to get windows to install onto a SATA HDD, something like it need drivers to detect the disk but windows had to be installed in order to install the drivers, some crazy BS like.

Well I was wonder if it was still a pain today, or if it's as simple as and IDE HDD and plugging it in and installing?

I have a SATA Storage drive and I notice it's response time is a lot quicker just wondering if I can easily get a SATA as my main install drive if that would get me a little more performance

 

[shadowduck]

With XP is it still a pain in the butt but not as bad as in the past. I have Windows XP SP2 running on a SATA HDD with no IDE drive in the system. What you have to do is make a driver floppy (a floppy disk maker that puts the right files was included on my motherboard CD). As the system boots up to the blue screen XP installer, you must press F6 AS SOON AS IT STARTS LOADING or you will suffer through the entire load sequence only to find out that XP cannot find a hard drive. Once you supply the setup program with the drivers, setup is not different than using an IDE drive. It is not just, but a bit painful. Thankfully, the betas of Vista I have used while still no providing native support for SATA drives allow any media (CD, USB key, etc) to be used not just floppies. Hope this helps you.

--shadowduck

 

[dizman]

Yeah sounds about the same as what I had to do with my RAID on my Abit SocketA board. Hmmm is it worth the performance boost? I'd really hate to have to bust out a floppy drive, sooo old

 

[doublehelix]

That's bull, shadowduck. I just built a system about 8 months ago w/ SATA harddrive and windows xp pro recognized the drive right off the bat. You only need to F6 when you're installing a RAID system.

I don't know what system your using that requires "drivers" in order to recognize the SATA harddrive, but...

whatever.

 

[shadowduck]

That's bull, shadowduck. I just built a system about 8 months ago w/ SATA harddrive and windows xp pro recognized the drive right off the bat. You only need to F6 when you're installing a RAID system.

I don't know what system your using that requires "drivers" in order to recognize the SATA harddrive, but...

whatever.

It all depends on the drive, Windows did not see my Maxtor drive (granted this was on a SATA RAID motherboard, but most motherboards with SATA support RAID), but without the drivers, Windows did not see the drive at all.

To Dizman: SATA is not much faster currently (at least SATA 150) than IDE, the advantages are in the cabling which is vastly smaller, and the drives use less power.

 

[pat]

That's bull, shadowduck. I just built a system about 8 months ago w/ SATA harddrive and windows xp pro recognized the drive right off the bat. You only need to F6 when you're installing a RAID system.

I don't know what system your using that requires "drivers" in order to recognize the SATA harddrive, but...

whatever.

Still amaze me how people, without knowing anything about the system he planned to build, just keep gving advices... Well..

 

[WJC]

Well it’s going to go one of two ways;

1st Scenario; XP is going to recognize everything and install. (Everybody’s happy)

2nd Scenario; XP is not going to recognize his SATA controller, you need the drivers on a floppy from your mobo CD, hit F6 and away you go.

If there is a 3d option please let me know.

 

[gentrie2001]

I had the same problem at first. I eventually figured out, after spending an hour with their customer service, that my motherboard only recognized SATA through the RAID controller even if it's just a single drive. I dunno why some motherboards are designed like that. Possibly becuase some of the older chipsets werent designed for SATA and a raid controller which recognizes SATA is incorporated into the board so that the mobo manufacturer can offer SATA with older chipsets. (Just one of the explinations I've heard.) Anyways.... the CD which came with the motherboard should contain the proper raid drivers which must be copied onto a floppy disk. If there is none then the motherboard natively recognises SATA. You then tell windows that there if a raid driver by pressing F6 when it tells you to at the begining of the XP instalation process. One thing I dont like about having to go through a raid controller is that the IDE light on the front of the computer dosent blink for the drive. Hope that helps!

 

[pat]

Well, older chipset needs drivers. newer dont. RAID always does.

So, no one can give a correct advice if he has no clue about the motherboard or chipset the drive will be connected.

So, the next post, after the OP should have been: "Which motherboard you're using?"

But the usual blurbing about drivers appears ...

 

[dizman]

I'm planning on getting a DFI UT NF4 DR SLI Expert mobo. Already ordered the Opteron 165, 2GB OCZ Plat Ram, XFX 7800GT, Zalman CNPS9500, and Aerocool AeroEngine2 Case (silver), just need a PSU that has the 8-pin server Aux connector (looking at a Silverstone 600W modular one)

If prefer to just use my 120GB IDE install drive I use now on the new system to save money as much as I can. Defiantly don't need to replace the 250GB SATA storage I have any time soon, only about 110GB full so far. And my SATA DL DVD Burner seems to work pretty good though on my system now Windows XP Pro won't recognize it as a SATA drive, thinks it's IDE. If your wonder it's a Plextor 716SA which I believe I've read somewhere this is a common problem with them (first one I had crapped out after 6months!)

But anyway, I was just kind of curious as I know SATA can be kind of cheap nowadays

 

[doublehelix]

Well, older chipset needs drivers. newer dont. RAID always does.

So, no one can give a correct advice if he has no clue about the motherboard or chipset the drive will be connected.

So, the next post, after the OP should have been: "Which motherboard you're using?"

But the usual blurbing about drivers appears ...

He never said anything about RAID, so the chances are slim to none that he was installing a RAID system...

He stated, "Keep in mind I haven't built a new computer for about a year, year and half" and continued with, "Well I was wonder if it was still a pain today...". Which made me believe that he's looking at a newer motherboard; which I hope doesn't need the 3rd party drivers for RAIDin' one drive but you never know, like gentrie stated. I would think that the up-to-date mobos wouldn't need RAID installed if only one drive is used...

but, again, you never know. That's a first (install RAID drivers to read one drive) for me and I've built 4 systems...

 

[wolfman1744]

I'm getting ready to build a system for the first time. I'm geting increasingly nervous about installing my Seagate 250 GB SATA drive (it's the only HDD I plan to use. At least for now.) All this talk about drivers and whatnot has me ancy. For the record, I'll be using an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI mobo. From what I'm hearing I'll need Win XP Pro. My current PC uses XP Home and from what I'm gathering it doesn't sound like XP Home will get it done. I was hoping to avoid the expense. In any case, I hope the chipset is new enough to avoid major SATA HDD installation woes. If anyone out there KNOWS this won't work let me know so I can get the appropriate drive. Much thanks for any advise.

 

[captaincharisma]

I have a question about this? in the BIOS i had to enable my SATA controller and foud it has a legacy(i think that what it was called) and a native mode. you think if you put it on native mode you think you would not need the driver disk?

 

[Henrik]

Dizman: I don't think it's too terribly difficult. Just read through the instructions and you will be fine. I actually have two SATA's in RAID0 on my A8N-SLI Premium. That was only a pain because I wasn't completely sure about setting up the RAID controller with drivers and all. *documentation wasn't as clear as I would have liked it* Just make sure you get the right mobo. Some support SATA and some SATAII.

Captain: You can never be too sure...

 

[borandi]

I bought a new system in the new year: 2 x Maxtor DiamondMax 10's on SATA.

Just stuck the BIOS on 'boot from CDROM', shoved in XP, and it all worked off the bat. Not one problem.

I'm also sure that F6 is for RAID. I dont use it, I didnt need to press F6. Just in, install, done the usual way.

 

[pat]

I'm planning on getting a DFI UT NF4 DR SLI Expert mobo. Already ordered the Opteron 165, 2GB OCZ Plat Ram, XFX 7800GT, Zalman CNPS9500, and Aerocool AeroEngine2 Case (silver), just need a PSU that has the 8-pin server Aux connector (looking at a Silverstone 600W modular one)

If prefer to just use my 120GB IDE install drive I use now on the new system to save money as much as I can. Defiantly don't need to replace the 250GB SATA storage I have any time soon, only about 110GB full so far. And my SATA DL DVD Burner seems to work pretty good though on my system now Windows XP Pro won't recognize it as a SATA drive, thinks it's IDE. If your wonder it's a Plextor 716SA which I believe I've read somewhere this is a common problem with them (first one I had crapped out after 6months!)

But anyway, I was just kind of curious as I know SATA can be kind of cheap nowadays

Ahh, now we can talk. The DFI nf4 DR will support the SATA drive just like any older drive if;

-The controller is not set to RAID in BIOS
-You make sure to use the nvidia controller and not the third party one if there is one.

Since the nforce4 is new enough, ithe SATA interface is integrated in the controller and this will make any SATA drive to install without the need to press F6.

Sometime, and since RAID is now popular, BIOS has the controller set to operate as RAID at default setting. And since the nvidia controller can RAID 2 ATA drive, 2 SATA drive and even RAID an ARRAY on the ATA with one on the SATA controller.

Your board should have 4 SATA connectors. Since the controller is versatile, you could, for example, have an array on connector 1 and 2, and having 2 single drive on SATA3 and 4. That means that you should make sure that the SATA connector your drive is plugged in is not set to operate as RAID. all of them can be controlled individually.

But I think that this board has another controller, added by DFI to add more connector than the 4 available with the nforce controller. It probably be a Sil controller. What happen with this controller, is that since it is not integrated into the system, but rather a third party controller (just like when the first sata drive appears, none of the chipset would support them, so third party controller were added to motherboard to support the new drive). And since the third party always need drivers to do RAID as well as IDE(because even if it is onboard, it uses the PCI or PCIe bus to communicate with the system(and all PCI and PCIe devices need drivers to operate anyway (graphic card, sound card, LAN controller,..), so the myth about SATA needs drivers just started. Because it in not the interface (SATA is an interface, or simply, a wire between an IDE controller and an IDE drive) that need drivers, bt rather the controller. So, the term "SATA drivers" is plain wrong. It should be third party IDE drivers or third party RAID drivers..

Using the third party is not that much complicated. You set it to work as IDE (or non RAID..) and when it is asked to press F6 to install third party, you do it and insert the floppy you did create by booting with the motherboard CD and follow the instruction.


So, to put it simple, nforce4, no RAID, no drivers. Sil(or any third party controller), either RAID and IDE, you need drivers.

 

[pat]

Like I said, you cannot correctly advice if you don't at least know the chipset. Now, I know that he'll be using an nforce4 motherboard and I know for sur that he won't need drivers. And some Promise controller, like the 20376, would requiere you to make a single drive RAID array to use one SATA hdd. that's one of the few controller that requiere that, and it was on a motherboard made in 2002 or 3..

and 4 system is what I build for myself in one year... apart from those I build for others..

 

[pat]

I have a question about this? in the BIOS i had to enable my SATA controller and foud it has a legacy(i think that what it was called) and a native mode. you think if you put it on native mode you think you would not need the driver disk?

Legacy will install without floppy. native may, but usually means that the drivers will make the controller to use the extra feature like NCQ, or hot swapping.

BIOS designer are not that bright too.. Using native to mean what they pretend to mean is not the best idea.. I would have use either "legacy" or "native" for direct support and "enhenced" for enhenced support with drivers..

But, I guess that they need to keep their support team busy ...

 

[pat]

I bought a new system in the new year: 2 x Maxtor DiamondMax 10's on SATA.

Just stuck the BIOS on 'boot from CDROM', shoved in XP, and it all worked off the bat. Not one problem.

I'm also sure that F6 is for RAID. I dont use it, I didnt need to press F6. Just in, install, done the usual way.

Your right. F6 with the nvidia is for RAID only.