Installing windows onto sata with out floppy disk

Ok folks...

This is an embarrassing question, but it is something that I have never had to do.

I am reinstalling windows on a dell xps machine and it has a sata drive. During installation windows can not detect the sata drive. So I think I need to install the drivers.

The machine doesn't have a floppy disk and I don't have a usb floppy.

Is there any trick I can use to get this to work?

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whistler

liven wrote:

Ok folks...

This is an embarrassing question, but it is something that I have never had to do.

I am reinstalling windows on a dell xps machine and it has a sata drive. During installation windows can not detect the sata drive. So I think I need to install the drivers.

The machine doesn't have a floppy disk and I don't have a usb floppy.

Is there any trick I can use to get this to work?

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

I had that problem once. I had to setup a new bootable CD with the drivers preinstalled. IIRC... I used Bart's PE to do the job.

liven

thanks man

YOu would think that dell would ship a disk with this already worked out....

Kinda ticks me off....

snadam

liven wrote:

Ok folks...

This is an embarrassing question, but it is something that I have never had to do.

I am reinstalling windows on a dell xps machine and it has a sata drive. During installation windows can not detect the sata drive. So I think I need to install the drivers.

The machine doesn't have a floppy disk and I don't have a usb floppy.

Is there any trick I can use to get this to work?

Hi Liven,

I work in a dell environment, alot with sata drives now. About 9 times out of 10, the BIOS is configured improperly from the factory. Before you get crazy and pull your hair out, check the BIOS settings and make sure that any RAID settings are turned OFF. This indludes NON RAID setups too (we dont use RAID arrays for workstations). Unfortunately, I dont remember the exact settings off the top of my head. I find this way too common in the new hardware I get from dell; and its the first thing I do on my checklist anymore for imaging.

liven

snadam wrote:

liven wrote:

Ok folks...

This is an embarrassing question, but it is something that I have never had to do.

I am reinstalling windows on a dell xps machine and it has a sata drive. During installation windows can not detect the sata drive. So I think I need to install the drivers.

The machine doesn't have a floppy disk and I don't have a usb floppy.

Is there any trick I can use to get this to work?

Hi Liven,

I work in a dell environment, alot with sata drives now. About 9 times out of 10, the BIOS is configured improperly from the factory. Before you get crazy and pull your hair out, check the BIOS settings and make sure that any RAID settings are turned OFF. This indludes NON RAID setups too (we dont use RAID arrays for workstations). Unfortunately, I dont remember the exact settings off the top of my head. I find this way too common in the new hardware I get from dell; and its the first thing I do on my checklist anymore for imaging.

Dude thanks I will check that now.

liven

hmmm I don't see any raid settings in the bios.

I have the bios up and on the monitor right now.

I only see sata settings... and it is enabled....

hetty

Some older SATA boards dont allow SATA drives to be picked up as normal IDE drives, so you have to use the SATA controller drivers during windows setup. On newer boards you dont need those drivers and the windows setup runs as if it is using IDE drives.

I second whistlers link. Integrate the drivers in to a new cd to do the installation.

dynamik

Check out nLite as well: http://www.nliteos.com/

You can customize a great deal of the installation. Include drivers, service packs, updates, Windows components, etc. Then it creates an iso for you to burn, and off you go. You never have to worry about finding drivers for a reinstall if you ever have to.

Look up the motherboard online, and go to the driver downloads for it. They should have an F6 SATA driver available. I've never had XP automatically detect a SATA drive during installation.

hetty

Sorry, f***-up on my part. The link for nLite that dynamik gave is the one to integrate drivers to the windows install. The link that whistler gave is the link to customise a boot-cd and you can integrate drivers in to that cd to see the hard drive if you cant see it without drivers. I thought I recognised it as nLite by looking at the link. My mistake.

nLite is better.

snadam

liven wrote:

hmmm I don't see any raid settings in the bios.

I have the bios up and on the monitor right now.

I only see sata settings... and it is enabled....

okay, as long as there are absolutely NO RAID settings in bios enabled, then you should be fine. Too bad that wasnt the case.

liven

all right thanks guys.

I will put nlite to the test tonight.

I was just hoping that since this box is a dell, and I have ever single piece of software supplied by the manufacturer, that I would be able to re-install with out having to make some sort of a custom cd/dvd

Guess that is just wishful thinking.

liven

what about using usb floppy to get the drivers on the disk?

This seems like it would be the easiest way to get this done.

Anyone?

undomiel

You didn't mention what version of windows you were installing, but if it is Vista you can use a usb key for the drivers. But I'm suspecting you're installing XP so you could try slipstreaming the drivers.

shon541

Also, you could burn the driver on a CD.

dynamik

shon541 wrote:

Also, you could burn the driver on a CD.

Not in this case. The driver needs to either be on the installation CD or supplied on a floppy (I'm assuming XP as well). You could also copy the installation files to the HD and figure out where to put the driver, and start the installation from the HD. The easiest way would probably be to just put the HD in another machine and copy everything over to it. Then you'd just boot of a basic boot disk and run the setup program.

shon541

dynamik wrote:

shon541 wrote:

Also, you could burn the driver on a CD.

Not in this case. The driver needs to either be on the installation CD or supplied on a floppy (I'm assuming XP as well). You could also copy the installation files to the HD and figure out where to put the driver, and start the installation from the HD. The easiest way would probably be to just put the HD in another machine and copy everything over to it. Then you'd just boot of a basic boot disk and run the setup program.

That's good to know, since floppies are becoming the thing of the past. Thanks!

liven

so dynamik will a usb floppy work for this?

undomiel

Sorry I'm not dynamik but that's ok since I'm better looking.

Yes a usb floppy drive will work.

dynamik

undomiel wrote:

Sorry I'm not dynamik but that's ok since I'm better looking.

Yes a usb floppy drive will work.

I almost spit my coffee out

undomiel

dynamik wrote:

I almost spit my coffee out

Mission -- Accomplished

pryde7

check the BIOS for the setting " Native SATA support" and disable it. Thats the course of the problem. Its the default setting for most new motherboards with OS preloaded.

hetty

Ive just double checked two machines here in work. You could check the advanced settings under each SATA controller in the BIOS for an the option to run the SATA mode in auto, legacy or IDE modes, if its there you probably wont need the drivers. Ive seen the option described as an IDE Enhanced Drive also on Asus boards. Its has do with AHCI

dynamik

hetty wrote:

Ive just double checked two machines here in work. You could check the advanced settings under each SATA controller in the BIOS for an the option to run the SATA mode in auto, legacy or IDE modes, if its there you probably wont need the drivers. Ive seen the option described as an IDE Enhanced Drive also on Asus boards. Its has do with AHCI

Are there any consequences for doing this? i.e. IDE speed instead of SATA speed.

undomiel

From digging in the Wikipedia link: If AHCI is not enabled by the motherboard and chipset, SATA controllers typically operate in "IDE emulation" mode which does not allow features of devices to be accessed that are not supported by the ATA/IDE standard. Windows device drivers that are labeled as SATA are usually running in IDE emulation mode unless they explicitly state that they are AHCI.

A little searching from google looks like some people report performance problems while others don't.

hetty

dynamik wrote:

Are there any consequences for doing this? i.e. IDE speed instead of SATA speed.

Not that I know of, Ive never noticed any speed difference.

undomiel wrote:

If AHCI is not enabled by the motherboard and chipset, SATA controllers typically operate in "IDE emulation" mode which does not allow features of devices to be accessed that are not supported by the ATA/IDE standard.

On new boards this is the case, old boards do not have IDE emulation and require you to install the driver. No way around it.