XP network unattended + Precision 370 SATA

[jammupatu]

Hello all.

I've been a reader of MSFN forums for a long time. ... At least whenever I've had a problem =). I guess it's now time to give something back to all the fine and mad skilled people who post here. I figured that one should outline a quick and dirty guide to XP network based unattended and the quest of adding Intel's SATA drivers. The Dell Precision we have has this controller: Intel® 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH6R)

(The upper string was taken from TXTSETUP.OEM in Dell's R82884.EXE.)

As I said, for the last couple of days I've been trying to update Intel SATA drivers to my networked XP unattended script. The method Intel gives on it's readme (the 'textmode' method) did work ok for me but unfortunately it crashes our GX280 line of Dell's. (Weird thing is that GX280 installs fine without any extra SATA stuff.) Due to that I had to find a way to make things... errr.... WORK. =)

A separate unattended package or some kind of different solution which would cost more managing time would not be considered viable. After doing searches on Google and MSFN's forums I managed to find a working way. It is working at least on these two machines. Haven't had the time to test it on Compaq's and clone machines yet, so beware. (We have a lot of different hardware in use. =( )

Here goes:

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1. Download the latest Intel® Application Accelerator RAID Edition for Windows XP from Dell. Mine was 'R82884.EXE'.

http://ftp.us.dell.com/SATA/R82884.EXE

2. Unpack R82884.EXE with WinRar or WinZip

3. Locate setup.exe you just unpacked and run it on the commandline 'setup.exe -A'.

4. Fire up an explorer window and navigate to '<sysdrive:>\Program Files\Intel\Intel Application Accelerator\Driver'

5. Open up a new explorer window and navigate to '<your XP unattended path>\i386\$OEM$\$1\drivers'

6. Create a directory (under the 'drivers' directory) called 'sata' (for example).

7. Copy all the files from '<sysdrive:>\Program Files\Intel\Intel Application Accelerator\Driver' to the 'sata' directory you just created to your XP unattended path. The files I had were:

iaahci.cat
iaAHCI.inf
iastor.cat
iaStor.inf
iaStor.sys
TXTSETUP.OEM

8. Navigate to '<your XP unattended path>\i386' folder

9. Locate the file 'txtsetup.sif' and open it in notepad

10. Do a find (ctrl+f) for the string '[sourceDisksFiles]'

11. Add a new line below the '[sourceDisksFiles]' heading and write 'iaStor.sys = 1,,,,,,_x,4,1'

12. Do a find (ctrl+f) for the string '[HardwareIdsDatabase]'

13. Add a new line below the '[HardwareIdsDatabase]' heading and write 'PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2652&CC_0106 = "iaStor"' (Mind the last ' after the " char!!!)

14. Do a find (ctrl+f) for the string '[sCSI.Load]'

15. Add a new line below the '[sCSI.Load]' heading and write 'iaStor = iaStor.sys,4'

16. Do a find (ctrl+f) for the string '[sCSI]'

17. Add a new line below the '[sCSI]' heading and write 'iaStor = "Intel® 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH6R)"' (Mind the last ' after the "

char!!!) and close the 'txtsetup.sif' file.

18. In the i386 folder you should find your 'unattended.txt' file. Open it in notepad too.

19. Locate the '[unattended]' heading

20. Locate the 'OemPnPDriversPath=' property (if it isn't there, create it!)

21. Add '"drivers\sata;"' as a value to the property. The line should be (at least if this is the first driver you are adding!)

OemPnPDriversPath="drivers\sata;" and close 'unattended.txt'.

22. Copy the file 'iaStor.sys' from '<sysdrive:>\Program Files\Intel\Intel Application Accelerator\Driver' to '<your XP unattended path>\i386'

23. Locate 'dosnet.inf' at '<your XP unattended path>\i386' and open it in notepad

24. Do a find (ctrl+f) for '[FloppyFiles.x]'. Edit it to be like this:

[FloppyFiles.x]
d1,ntldr
d1,iaStor.sys

25. Do a find (ctrl+f) for '[Files]'.

My [Files] was like this:

[Files]








d1,usetup.exe,system32\smss.exe
d1,ntdll.dll,system32\ntdll.dll

[CmdConsFiles]

As you can see there were a lot of empty lines. Add a new line after the line 'd1,ntdll.dll,system32\ntdll.dll'. To that new line, write 'd1,iaStor.sys' and

end the line with 'Enter' =P. '[Files]' should be like the below example shows:

[Files]








d1,usetup.exe,system32\smss.exe
d1,ntdll.dll,system32\ntdll.dll
d1,iaStor.sys

[CmdConsFiles]

26. Close 'dosnet.inf'

27. Boot up your network unattended XP script.

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Some general notes and a couple of references:

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Check 'TXTSETUP.OEM' and 'iaStor.inf' for tips on the PCI strings and descriptions.

'dosnet.inf' seems to be real important file in networked unattended, it seems to tell to the setup that it should really copy the 'iaStor.sys' and makes it findable on the upcoming boots of textmode setup.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=At...=post&id=219993

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=32151

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...32482&hl=iastor

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I decided to post this to MSFN since it's an Intel SATA issue after all.

Hopefully this helps someone. It's well past my regulatory working hours so I'm off. =)

-Jammupatu