Hard drive driver problem

[Flatron]

Hi,

I set up a multi-boot system, XP32 and Vista 64. On XP, I use my hard drive in AHCI mode, but in Vista I couldn't install the drivers for that mode.

The Intel Matrix Storage manager setup contains the drivers for the RAID and AHCI mode, but the setup exits with an error if the SATA handling is in IDE mode.

On XP, if I set it to RAID mode, I can install the drivers, and on the next boot, when I set it to AHCI mode, it worked fine, but on Vista the system restarts without any warning or error message in the beginning of the system loading screen if the SATA mode is not IDE, so I must install the drivers, but - as I wrote - it don't works in IDE mode. I know that I could install the drivers from a floppy at the beginning of the system installation, but I don't have a floppy drive.

I read the driver's readme, and the setup can extract the drivers, but I can't add to the system. In the readme there is an installation method, but I don't understand that. It told that I should make an UNATTEND.TXT file, but it don't tell me what to do with that file.

I attach the driver readme to this post.

So, I need a description about adding drivers to Vista.

Thanks

readme.txt

[spacesurfer]

This was posted almost 6 months ago and no answer so I thought I'd answer.

Given that you already have XP setup and no floppy, what you can do is take advantage of Grub4Dos's ability to map a floppy image to a virtual floppy. I've tried this method and it works. Here's what you need to do:

Setup your XP to boot Grub4Dos menu. See this post for help on this: Multi-boot XP / Vista. Don't worry that it's about multi-booting Vista and XP. All you are interested is in renaming ntldr to ntldrxp and grldr to ntldr.

Next, you need to make a floppy image with your AHCI drivers using WinImage or any other floppy image creator. There are some free ones you can search for.

Then, when you have your menu.lst made, you need to this:

title Boot CD using Smart Boot Manager (mapping 2 floppies)
find --set-root /sbootmgr.dsk
map (hdx,y)/yourfloppyimage.img (fd0)
map --mem /sbootmgr.dsk (fd1)
map --hook
chainloader (fd1)+1
rootnoverify (fd1)

Or if you use Grub's native CD-rom support:

title Start BartPE from CD-ROM 0
map (hdx,y)/yourfloppyimage.img (fd0)
cdrom --init
map --hook
chainloader (cd0)
boot

In both cases, x and y specify your HD number and partition number where your floppy image is stored.

If you rather install vista from HDD, then copy your DVD to root of any drive, then use the following:

title Start BartPE from CD-ROM 0
map (hdx,y)/yourfloppyimage.img (fd0)
find --set-root /bootmgr
chainloader /bootmgr
boot

Hope this helps anyone without a floppy.

Edited June 30, 2007 by spacesurfer