Install XP on SATA drives

On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for SATA
drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy drive. I
have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA drivers which I
can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?

"Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?

Typically when you purchase a new laptop the OS is already installed be it
on a SATA or PATA drive.

"Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>

make up a slipstream OS CD and include the SATA drivers

http://blog.waynehartman.com/archive/2007/04/10/64.aspx

Put the SATA drivers on a CD. During installation you will come to a point
where you're asked if there are any other disk drives to search for. Answer
yess and when prompted, use the driver CD. Be sure you know how to get to
the file location XP will need.

Or go into the BIOS and set the HDD to ATA Compatibility. After XP is
installed and you have the drivers on the HDD, restart, change the BIOS to
SATS and get the drivers ready to install when asked.


"Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>

Get a USB floppy.

It's bad that XP's F6 driver has no ability to redirect it's driver
search to a CD. It means that you really need a USB floppy drive.
Fortunately, they are cheap (under $20). If you get the "right one"
(meaning one that is fully compatible with that laptop's BIOS (most are
these days)), it will function fully as an internal floppy would, as
drive A:, you can even boot from it.


Nabob wrote:
> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for SATA
> drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy drive. I
> have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA drivers which I
> can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>
>

Jerry, you don't understand the issue or the question.

He's trying to take a new laptop that came from the factory brand new
with Vista, wipe the hard drive and manually install a generic OEM or
retail "full product" copy of XP. XP (NO VERSION of XP) does not
natively understand or talk to SATA drives. Period. Never (without
drivers or emulation). And in particular, the XP installation program
(Winnt.exe) is even dumber than XP itself.

There is a solution, it's called using an "F6 Disk" (if you don't know
what an F6 disk is, look it up). However, again, this was a capability
in the XP setup program (Winnt.exe) that was written back in the 1990's
primarily to support installation of Windows on RAID arrays. It ONLY
understands floppy drives, there is no way to redirect it to ANY other
drive ... not to a CD or anything else. And without it, XP's setup
program (Winnt.exe) will see the system as not having a hard drive at
all (since the only hard drive present will be a SATA drive, which it
doesn't recognize or talk to), and the installation will terminate.

[Note: SOME computer BIOS' have built-in IDE emulation of their SATA
ports and drives. If a computer's bios has such a feature, great, it
solves the problem. Unfortunately, prevailing practice is that Desktops
have this ability and laptops don't (undoubtedly yes, there are
exceptions, but that's the prevailing practice).]

The good news is that the emulation of an internal floppy drive from a
compatible external USB floppy drive is virtually perfect. You can boot
from such a floppy drive, and the F6 driver feature will also work from
such a drive.

Jerry wrote:
> "Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
> news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
>> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
>> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
>> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
>> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>
> Typically when you purchase a new laptop the OS is already installed be it
> on a SATA or PATA drive.
>
>

That may be another solution, although to me it seems that a USB floppy
is still an easier way to go. I'm also not certain that it will work
for installation .... there is a difference between adding a driver to
Windows XP itself, and adding a driver to the Windows SETUP program
(Winnt.exe), which is what an F6 disk does.

Yes Baby wrote:
> "Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
> news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
>> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
>> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
>> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
>> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>>
>
> make up a slipstream OS CD and include the SATA drivers
>
> http://blog.waynehartman.com/archive/2007/04/10/64.aspx
>
>

John, I don't think that you can use a CD for drivers that will be need
for/during the installation itself (before Windows is actually even
running).

As to "set the HDD to ATA Compatibility", that's fine if the BIOS has
that feature. Unfortunately, the BIOS' of most new laptops do not have
that feature. It's primarily found on desktop PCs.


John wrote:
> Put the SATA drivers on a CD. During installation you will come to a point
> where you're asked if there are any other disk drives to search for. Answer
> yess and when prompted, use the driver CD. Be sure you know how to get to
> the file location XP will need.
>
> Or go into the BIOS and set the HDD to ATA Compatibility. After XP is
> installed and you have the drivers on the HDD, restart, change the BIOS to
> SATS and get the drivers ready to install when asked.
>
>
> "Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
> news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
>> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
>> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
>> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
>> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>>
>
>

"Yes Baby" <2468@never2latebtinternet.com> wrote in message
news:zNqdncOPRaohPyXbnZ2dnUVZ8vidnZ2d@bt.com...
>
> "Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
> news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
>> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
>> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
>> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
>> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>>
>
> make up a slipstream OS CD and include the SATA drivers
>
> http://blog.waynehartman.com/archive/2007/04/10/64.aspx

Thank you, it worked.

"Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:13bi9de76ptj140@news.supernews.com...
>
> "Yes Baby" <2468@never2latebtinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:zNqdncOPRaohPyXbnZ2dnUVZ8vidnZ2d@bt.com...
>>
>> "Nabob" <nabob@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
>> news:13bgv835heufpc9@news.supernews.com...
>>> On new laptops, there are SATA drives and not PATA drives. XP asks for
>>> SATA drivers from a floppy drive and will stop if there is no floppy
>>> drive. I have not found a way to bypass this, though I have the SATA
>>> drivers which I can put on a CD. Is there any way to circumvent this?
>>>
>>
>> make up a slipstream OS CD and include the SATA drivers
>>
>> http://blog.waynehartman.com/archive/2007/04/10/64.aspx
>
> Thank you, it worked.
>

great, and did you read this Barry.