Hard Drive Swap Fujitsu N6410 Advice??

(I recently posted about swapping drives, XP Pro, and Vegas, which I am beginning to think was off topic a bit.)

I am looking for advice or where to look for information on swapping out hard drives on my Fujitsu N6410 -806. This configuration came with 2 160g SATA drives @ 4200rpm.
The OS this model comes with is MCE(media Center), and may not work with Sony Vegas as well as XP PRO (would work with SONY Vegas) so I am doing a fresh install to XP pro at the same time.

I will be installing 2 Hitachi Travelstar 7200 100g SATA drives, into the same cases the Notebook came with. Then I will set the BIOS to boot from DVD/CD drive and boot up with the XP Pro disc.

Here is a quote from the official guidelines I got from Fujitsu:

Installing Windows 2K/XP on a SATA hard drive:

Note: Windows XP Setup requires the use of a floppy disk for this
procedure, some USB floppy disk drives are not fully supported by
Windows XP Setup; they will cause a "No Mass Storage Controller Found"
after step 9 in the Installation instructions. Using a different USB
floppy disk drive (preferably made by a different manufacturer) is the
only recourse.

Is there a workaround so I can just use my Drivers and applications DVD..from Fujitsu that came with the computer?


By the way, I was told by one CS rep that it will NOT void the warranty on the rest of the computer by swapping the hard drives.

I won't be changing anything on the stock hard drives, so I can always reboot with those, that is my insurance policy.

The rest of the Fujitsu instructions are as follows:

Preparation:

Required items:

- USB floppy disk drive or floppy disk drive built-in to computer.
- Blank floppy disk.
- Fujitsu Drivers and Application Restore disc or access to the
Internet.

Start by putting the SATA driver files onto a floppy disk.

1. Have a floppy drive and a blank floppy disk. While in Windows, attach
the floppy drive to the computer, insert the floppy disk . This may need
to be done on a different computer.

2. Copy all the files from the "SATA" folder of the Fujitsu Drivers and
Applications CD or from the downloaded version of the driver to the
floppy disk.

1. Explore the SATA folder of the Fujitsu Drivers and Applications
Restore disc: Insert the disc in the optical drive then open My
Computer, right-click the optical drive icon and select Explore. In the
left side Folders listing, open the Drivers folder then the SATA folder.
The files of the SATA driver will now be listed on right side of the
screen. Select All of the files, copy them, then open the A: drive and
paste the files.

2. Download the SATA driver from the Fujitsu Support website. Run
the download which will open a folder showing the SATA driver files.
Select All of the files, copy them, then open the A: drive and paste the
files.

3. The floppy disk now holds the SATA driver files. Eject and label the
disk "Manufacturer-supplied hardware support disk".

Installation:

Note: Fujitsu USB Floppy FPCFDD12 is not supported for these
instructions. FPCFDD11 or FPCFDD16 are supported.

1. Boot to the Windows Setup CD.

2. Press F6 when the "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI
or RAID driver" appears.

3. Setup will begin to load files.

4. A message will appear saying 'Setup could not determine the type of
one or more mass storage devices installed in your system, or you have
chosen to manually specify an adapter...' .

5. Press which will allow you to install the SATA driver.

6. Follow the instructions on the screen, using the floppy disk with the
SATA driver files: "Please insert the disk labeled Manufacturer-supplied
hardware support disk into Drive A: * Press ENTER when ready.".

7. A list will appear of the drivers you can install. Use the arrow keys
to select "Intel(R) 82801FBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH6M)" and
press ENTER.

8. Setup will inform you the driver is installed: "Setup will load
support for the following mass storage device(s): Intel(R) 82801FBM SATA
AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH6M)".

9. Press ENTER - Setup continues.

Note: If Windows Setup fails after step 9 due to "No Mass Storage
Controller Found" it is because the USB floppy disk drive in use is not
supported by Windows Setup. During steps 1-9, the USB floppy disk drive
is controlled by the system BIOS, after step 9, the USB driver of
Windows Setup attempts to control the drive, not all drives are
supported. Using a different USB floppy disk drive (preferably made by a
different manufacturer) is the only recourse.

John, should you have any further questions or concerns regarding this
issue, please reply back to this email


(End of Fujitsu instructions)

Anyone have any comments on this???

I will check back in a few days as I realize this is very technical stuff, but at the same time looks pretty straightforward with these instructions I got.

I was told by another rep, that I might be able to just load the drivers from my DVD drive instead.

If you are still reading this post, what do you think? Any opinions on this procedure?

Thanks and I'll check back in a few days...

 

I don't see why you couldn't just load up the drivers off of your DVD drive.

The preferred way is the floppy drive I guess. Some people can't let go of the floppy.

I say try it with your disc instead of your floppy disk.

Should work fine, I don't see why it shouldn't.

cheers,
MIke

 

Thanks for your advice Mike, I had a friend tell me the same thing about uisng the Drivers DVD instead of the floppy.

I will give it a try and post my results at a later date.

Jm

 

UPDATE:

I replaced the hard drives, booted from the XP PRO DVD, went into setup...But it won't recognize the hard drives so...

I have to go buy a USB floppy as I could not get the windows setup to read the drivers from the DVD/cd!

I guess this is the only way to do it.

Anyone who has sucessfully installed the drivers it would be nice to know how they did it.


Maybe this is the only way. I 'm off to the Computer store to buy a Windows Setup Supported USB floppy!