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    xp sata installation without floppy

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by PC_pulsar, Sep 20, 2006.

  1. PC_pulsar

    PC_pulsar Notebook Evangelist

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    I bought a new laptop 2 months ago (see specs below). My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive and contains a sata disk. When i bought my new laptop i didn't purchased windows with it. I have a legal xp pro version at home (wich isn't oem). The laptop was brought to the dealer where i could purchase it. THe dealer installed an illegal version of xp mediacenter edition on it. Which i used these 2 months. Now i want to install my legal version onto it, but i have the well known sata install problem.

    Normal the xp installation with sata goes about like this: Boot from cd and push enter to install xp. At a certain point you have to push F6 to install the sata drivers from floppy.

    The problem is i don't have a floppy drive. What should i do? Is there any other way to install windows xp? (i don't have a bootable usb device too and i hope to install winxp without spending money for such things)
     
    PC_pulsar, Sep 20, 2006
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  2. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    You can slipstream the SATA driver in using nLite.
     
    ZaZ, Sep 20, 2006
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  3. PC_pulsar

    PC_pulsar Notebook Evangelist

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    nLite? whats that?
     
    PC_pulsar, Sep 20, 2006
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  4. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    Google is your friend.

    Link
     
    ZaZ, Sep 20, 2006
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  5. vassil_98

    vassil_98 Notebook Deity

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    Or, disable native SATA under BIOS and install the SATA drivers after Windows installation. Nlite is great but more than one person here has had problems with it.
     
    vassil_98, Sep 20, 2006
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  6. Jalf

    Jalf Comrade Santa

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    vassil_98: It's hard to install Windows to a Sata drive if Windows does not have access to Sata drivers. It sorta needs to be able to detect and access the harddrive... ;)

    But yeah, you can slipstream drivers or service packs onto your Windows CD (nlite is one popular tool for this, but it's not required)

    Adding sata drivers can be a complicated affair sometimes (depends on the chipset in question. I gave up on slipstreaming the sata drivers for my Via chipset, but it's relatively simple for Nforce, for example)

    So an easier alternative (to begin with, at least) would be to start by slipstreaming SP2 to your Windows CD (assuming your install CD doesn't already have it)
    That's much simpler. All you have to do is extract the files from the CD, run the SP installer with some command-line argument explained on msdn.microsoft.com, and burn the result to a CD again. (Of course there's no guarantee that SP2 adds the sata driver you need, but it's worth a try)
     
    Jalf, Sep 20, 2006
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  7. PC_pulsar

    PC_pulsar Notebook Evangelist

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    Hopefully that will work.
     
    PC_pulsar, Sep 20, 2006
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  8. PC_pulsar

    PC_pulsar Notebook Evangelist

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    But would any external floppydisk do the job? or should i have a special type external floppydisk? Maybe i'd plan to purchase one (i know what i said before ;) )
     
    PC_pulsar, Sep 20, 2006
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  9. Jalf

    Jalf Comrade Santa

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    I've never tried, but yes, I assume that would work.
     
    Jalf, Sep 20, 2006
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  10. ChangFest

    ChangFest Notebook Consultant

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    The external floppy disc method works as long as you have the correct SATA drivers for your chipset. For my desktop, Windows would not recognize my SATA drive even after slipstreaming SP2. I used the floppy method. After I went through that process I then learned about nLite...oh well.
     
    ChangFest, Sep 20, 2006
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  11. vassil_98

    vassil_98 Notebook Deity

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    Jalf, as far as I understand it, the problem here is that even before the installation begins, the installer complains that there is no hard disk. This is a common problem for all new HP laptops (for example) and that's why there's a special sticky for it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=62357.
    ...or maybe I have just answered the wrong question.
     
    vassil_98, Sep 20, 2006
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  12. PC_pulsar

    PC_pulsar Notebook Evangelist

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    that's about a reinstallation.
     
    PC_pulsar, Sep 20, 2006
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  13. PC_pulsar

    PC_pulsar Notebook Evangelist

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    darn it isn't easy :p
     
    PC_pulsar, Sep 21, 2006
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  14. mattireland

    mattireland It used to be the iLand..

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    If you've got a newish CD-ROM drive you can boot of that.
     
    mattireland, Jun 1, 2007
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  15. wave

    wave Notebook Virtuoso

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    No what this discussion was about is not booting from floppy. It was about booting from the Windows XP cd and installing it on a SATA harddisk. The Problem is that Win XP does not come with SATA drivers so you need to give it the drivers before you can install. Under windows XP you can only do this with a floppy disk containing the drivers. XP does not accept CDs, USB sticks or anything else, only floppy.

    Vista can get drivers from CD, DVD or USB devices or floppy.

    Also booting from CD does not depend on how modern or new your CD drive is. It depends on your bios.
     
    wave, Jun 1, 2007
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  16. ffitzpatrick

    ffitzpatrick Newbie

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    It's worse than described earlier. Some newer desktop motherboards have no floppy controller. To install XP w/ SATA controller with MS XP CD you must use floppy... and MS doesn't support most USB floppy drives... see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/916196/ for the bad news. The only way I found to install XP w/ SATA is to use nlite... http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

    Using nlite you end up making a new CD, you have to use a computer to copy all the contents of the original MS XP CD, and then add the SATA drivers and create and burn a new ISO image. The new CD will contain the SATA drivers and no floppy is needed.
     
    ffitzpatrick, Feb 26, 2008
    #16