Adding sata to a fairly old system

Hi guys. My cousin's computer that I built for him recently had some problems. So i took a look at it tonight and it turns out the Samsung HDD in it had bad sectors all over it when i ran the Samsung diagnostic tool. I want to add a sata hdd to the system since it's basically the standard these days so would it be possible to just buy a SATA PCI card for the mobo and plug the new sata hdd onto that to install windows? If so, would I need any special drivers while installing XP similar to RAID or something? Or Will the windows XP setup disk most likely recognize and see the drive to make the installation even easier for me? Thanks!

Depends on the mode the SATA controller is running in but most likely, if it's not an SP3 updated installation disk, you will either need to nlite + driver update it, or use the floppy. You may also need to go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from a SCSI device since any HDD controller that is not part of the board (and not bolt-on also) is considered a SCSI device.

Hmm does it help if i tell you the motherboard in the system? It's a Asus A7V400-MX mobo with a athlon xp 3000+ CPU. Would this SATA card work with the system? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124022

If the drive is not going to be on a RAID, then that would work out fine. Setup the BIOS just like Know Nuttin said before you install Windows.

Also, instead of going through all of that trouble with nlite, just get a floppy drive & disk and put the correct OEM drivers of that card (look for an "F6 Install" folder, or "floppy" folder in the driver section and locate the right drivers) and when installing XP, use the F6 command during the initial setup and it will prompt you to load third party drivers, which are the SATA drivers on the floppy.

HOLD ON A SECOND!!! I just looked at that card you posted and in one of the reviews it said that the IDE is not bootable. That possibly means that it is simply an addon card and you cannot boot from that PCI card. If you want to go SATA, then you'll have to get another SATA PCI card, one with a Silicon Image or JMicron controller, not a VIA.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132001

That one will work. Judging from the pictures, the previously linked card lacks a build in ROM. I'm not sure if that would prevent it being bootable or not but I know the Rosewill one will work.

Awesome. Thanks for the help guys! Maybe his computer has a few more years left in it before he finally upgrades it ha.

Moto7451 said:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132001

That one will work. Judging from the pictures, the previously linked card lacks a build in ROM. I'm not sure if that would prevent it being bootable or not but I know the Rosewill one will work.

Click to expand...

i have this card... should work no prob to run an OS sata drive off of... i think you may still have to do the whole press f6 to install raid or 3rd party drivers even if your not running raid... but the cd that comes with it has the proper floppy drivers.