installing XP on a single SATA drive

[Sic6]

Hi,

I just brought a new 80GB SATA drive.

I have an old 40GB IDE drive, and what I'm trying to do is to install XP on the new SATA drive and then reformat the old IDE drive and use it as an extra storage.

But then here comes the problem.

When I boot from the XP installation disk and I was on the part where to install XP, I can't see the new SATA drive!

I've been researching for a while now, and I found out that I need a "driver" so Windows could detect a SATA drive.

So I browsed the Motherboard CD (which contains different drivers) and here are the folders I found:

(screenshot:)

The most relevant folder that I can see is the RAID folder. Here's it contents:

And here's the contents of the FloppyImage folder:

And this is where I'm stuck. I don't know which driver I need.

Help please.

Thanks for your time that could save me days.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Gimme the name and model of your mobo please...

[Sic6]

Thanks for the reply man.

It's a ECS Elitegroup 671T-M.

More info on their webpage:

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Products/...=44&LanID=0

Edited November 23, 2007 by Sic6

[Kelsenellenelvian]

OK 2 things...

Run the autorun on the disk. See if their is an option to make sata floppy.

Check in the bios and see if their is an option to emulate ide or pata with sata...

[Sic6]

Thanks for the reply.

Run the autorun on the disk. See if their is an option to make sata floppy.

Check in the bios and see if their is an option to emulate ide or pata with sata...

ok.. i guess there's no option on the menu to make a sata floppy.

and i'm not that sure about that option to emulate ide or pata with sata, (noob) but I'll check on that later.

--

btw, can't i just use one of the drivers inside the D:\RAID\SiS\FloppyImage folder of my MoBo CD?

Isn't one of those the needed driver?

while researching i found this page:

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showpost.php...amp;postcount=3

He said copying the "964_180" directory to a floppy. is that what i needed?

need to be sure.

THanks!

[Kelsenellenelvian]

OK I dl'ed the manual and the raid package....

After some looking and reading the manual I found out what you need in the manual.

[Sic6]

Thanks man but I only understand half of it. lol.

So what I should I do there? what setting should I have? and what would the new setting do?

Sorry for asking too many questions it's just coz I'm really new to these things.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

You set it to ide mode and XP will instead of seeing it as a SATA drive will see it as a normal ide drive during setup.

[Sic6]

Ok i get it now. thanks.

should i switch the setting back to default after installing windows?

and btw, i have 2 partitions of the SATA drive both 37GB each.

when i reinstall XP, will Windows reformat the drive and thus removing the 2 partitions? because i already placed some of my files on the new SATA drive.

or will windows just install XP and leave the files there?

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Nope you can leave the setting as is.

When you get to the setup portion of the xp install you select the partition you want to install on then there is no need to delete any partitions. You can and should delete and format the partition your desired area for the windows install to make sure it is nice and clean...

(Unless ofcourse your using a recovery disk or some unnatended disk that someone built for you.)

[Sic6]

ok thanks again for your continued support.

i already have 2 partitions:

a. 37 GB

b. 37 GB

and i'm planning to create a new one for the windows xp system files. how much size should i give to it?

can i add a new partition within an existing partition?

// i added u to my YM, i can ask u some quick questions there before i finally install xp, if u want.

Edited November 23, 2007 by Sic6

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Naw I would just keep it at 37 & 37 untill your more experienced.

Cause unless your willing to delete all partitions and repartition the whole drive then your only choices are to either leave them or delete one and split it into more partitions. (Tooo many and it just gets mess and confusing ya know)

[Sic6]

ok thanks for the advice man.

i'm going to do it now and i'll post back and tell you what happened.

so i'll delete the first partition, then select unpartitioned space and create a new one.

thanks !!

Edited November 23, 2007 by Sic6

[Sic6]

Okay all went fine.

I'm using the new SATA drive now. However there's this one problem that's bugging me.

When I restart my computer, this error would come out (after the POST):

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

And then it would not boot, it will stay with that error. I can boot by shutting it down manually and starting it again.

Do you know what could be the problem? And how can I fix it?

Thanxx

[Idontwantspam]

That's odd. There is no WINNT directory in XP (usually), that's the WINDOWS directory on Windows 2000. Strange. When you manage to boot, open cmd.exe and type

echo %windir%

and tell us what it says.