SATA & floppy?

These are some reviews of a HDD. I do not have a question about any actual HDD, but what they are talking about with needing a floppy to boot windows? I am pretty sure I will need this, Im gettin a whole new rig in about 2 months, OS and all. So can someone explain what they are talking about and how I do that? Thank you.

From NewEgg:



Fast, quiet and easy to install. Needs a power cord as noted. If you want to make it a boot drive, you'll need a floppy (drive) to feed Windows SATA controller driver.
Anyway, I glad, I've got it.


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SmuvMoney,12/30/2003 11:23:12 PM

This is my first experience with SATA. All I can say is that I'm impressed. Since it is OEM, you will need a power connector, but my mobo came with one. It took me a moment to figure out that I had to have the drivers for a new OS installation. Fortunately, that was provided by the mobo as well. If you know that going in or are prepared for it, you should not have any trouble. In terms of actual performance, it is probably the best drive I've ever used. It runs circles around the IDE drive in my other machine. In fact, I plan to get another one for the other machine - it's that good!


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tmd0925,12/20/2003 1:21:27 PM

This thing is unbelievable. Here I thought I would never find a hard drive as quiet as my old Samsung 120G 5400 2MB...until I got this one, which is insanely fast and literally (and I'm extremely fussy about noise)...literally, truly silent, even when seeking. This drive is great and for the money its a steal, plus its Newegg, the best retailer around. Q&A: Yes it requires a seperate power adapter, yes it comes with mounting screws, and if you need to install windows on this or any other SATA drive, you had better have a working floppy drive or else the install can't use the drivers to see the disk, you've been forewarned

Yes, to install windows, you need to hit F6 to install SCSI or RAID drivers(basically, any HDD controller driver not in the CD). The driver has to be on a floppy and it will read and configure later in the install. It will not acknowledge acceptance of your command, but will give you a prompt later.

Sorry, you spoke over my head a bit. If I do not intend on setting up raid, just one 160GB SATA for instance, I will be ok? And do I need to make those boot floppies myself, or do them come with them? Im confussed

rassler said:

If I do not intend on setting up raid, just one 160GB SATA for instance, I will be ok? And do I need to make those boot floppies myself, or do them come with them? Im confussed

Click to expand...

Have a closer read.....

Xaotic said:

Yes, to install windows, you need to hit F6 to install SCSI or RAID drivers(basically, any HDD controller driver not in the CD). The driver has to be on a floppy.....

Click to expand...

With onboard mass storage controllers like RAID, SATA, SATA RAID, ONBOARD SCSI, etc. will need their drivers located onto a floppy to install in Win2K, Win2K Pro, WXP Home, WXP Pro & WXP Corp. (all NT systems under the M$ flag) to have a successful install. They are not boot floppies, just a way for the driver to be installed.

Ok, so if those drivers are not on the CD already though, how do I get them onto the floppy?

The installation image to create the floppy will be available at the motherboard manufacturer's site. Download, execute and it will generate the disk.

Doesn't matter what motherboard or what HDD? Just go to the site and look for the drivers, ok. Thank you for clearing that up, doesnt sound as hard as what I thought I was going to have to do.

The motherboard matters greatly, as the drivers will differ between controllers. It's a good idea to have matching drivers and firmware, so a BIOS update to update the FW is a good idea too. The HDDs have no impact for these operations as they will be configured during setup.

Im probably starting to annoy you, because I really have no idea what you are talking about. I dont know what a controler is or what it does and most of the other stuff is leaving me guessing too. If you think I should read one of the stickies or just give up on this point let me know. But if you wouldnt mind writing what you mean with a bit more detail (Im a serious noobie) I would really appreciate it.

I dont even know whether when buying my OS its better to get the Upgrade version of XP PRO to ugrade from onto of a WIN 98 I have at home or get a Full Install type for a whole new system. Thats really sad isn't it.....

Ok, the controller referred to in these posts is the motherboard(or in some cases PCI card mounted) chipset that determines how the MB communicates with the HDDs. Technically, there is another controller on the HDD that does the bulk of translation, but it's handled through firmware, not drivers.

You install drivers into the OS to enable it to communicate with the drives. Without the drivers, the OS cannot communicate with the drive as it does not know how to communicate with the drive.

Since the driver is not on the installation media, it needs to be added during the installation process. MS requires that a FDD be used for this purpose currently. Once the drivers are loaded, the OS can configure and perform IO on the devices controlled.

On the OS, as long as you have the CD of a qualifying MS product(98 is one), you can do a clean install. The installation process will search for a prior version of windows. You put the CD in and afterwards the installation will proceed. I do not recommend installing and updating any OS, due to things that can go wrong with such a procedure.

You can't learn without reading and asking questions and it's always better to find out about potential complications first.

Thank you for this attention.

So the actual physical steps would be to:
1) connect everything, including HHD

2)install OS (which you recommend getting a full version, not an ungrade)

3)install drivers from floppy which I got from MOBO website


I cant figure out which step goes first, 2 or 3. This is why, if I did OS first, thats impossible because there is no where to save it yet, the HDD is not working yet, right?
But how do I do 3 first, for there is no OS to update with the working drivers.

Ohhhhhhh the complications of a 1st build. Im a little nit worried, but very excited.
Are there any other hardware problems I am likely to run into similar to this one?

Can anyone provide anything else that may fill in some blanks for me? I'll even take a good link if you got one!!

The Definitive General Hardware FAQ

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=177196

in the General Hardware section has lots of links, including this one:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90594

It's a good place to start.

Haha.....How to build a Computer Guide!!

I guess I should appologize, I have missed that one untill now, should be LOTS of help. Thanks

First, I would say get the upgrade version of XP or 2000 if you still have a 98, ME, or 2000 disc lying around, it's $99 cheaper. The BIOS of the motherboard should allow you to choose to boot from CD first then the hard drive/floppy drive. Once you set it to boot from CD first save the changes and put the XP/2000 CD in the drive. The system will say press a key to boot from CD, hit anykey. A blue screen will pop up and at the bottom it will "press F6 if you need to install a third party RAID/SCSI controller." Press F6 and it'll ask for the disc. Put the floppy you made with the files you got from the motherboard driver site in the drive and and hit ok. It should show the driver and hit ok. Now the driver should be installed so windows knows how to talk to the hardware that controls the SATA drive. When XP came out SATA hadn't been built yet so it has no idea how to talk to the hardware which is why it needs the driver. From there on the setup is run of the mill windows install. If you get the upgrade version it'll say it could not find a previously installed version of windows and to put the 98/ME/2000 CD in the drive. Do so and then it'll continue like normal. If you don't get the upgrade version you won't have to do this step. I hope that's clear enough for you. We're always here to help if you still get stuck

Yes, very clear. I love this forum. Last thing, I would need to make the floopy with the drivers on it from another computer right, one that is fully operational?

rassler said:

Yes, very clear. I love this forum. Last thing, I would need to make the floopy with the drivers on it from another computer right, one that is fully operational?

Click to expand...

Yep
Glad to be of service