WinXP third party drivers without a f*&%ing floppy

[Adcadet]

I want to install my new SATA HD. The SATA controller on my motherboard (MSI K8T Neo) requires 3rd party drivers, which is provided on a floppy. I don't have a floppy drive on this computer. Is there a way I can burn the drivers to CD?

Grrr.....

Would it help if I just bought a damn SATA card?

 

[Adcadet]

oh, I have other HD's in this machine, yet I can't install XP to the SATA HD while running another OS off a different HD. Anybody know a trick to get this thing to work.

And here I thought I was living in the modern era. grrrr.

 

[Tea]

Easy method. Plug in a floppy drive.

(But yes, I feel your frustration. It's an appallingly klutzy bit of design from our old friends M$. Does anyone remember Edln?)

 

[Adcadet]

hmm...how do I do a network install? I've got other computers (with floppy drives!) on my network.

 

[Adcadet]

or better yet, how do I slipstream a driver or two in?

 

[Jimshady]

Adcadet, surely you have a floppy drive lying around somewhere. The easiest thing you could do is open up your case, temporarily plug the fdd in, without physically installing the drive. It'll only take a minute!

Does anyone remember Edln?

Thats weird, I just thought about edlin last night. Did you know it comes with w2k and xp!?

 

[Handruin]

Maybe you can try to load them from one of those USB pen drives if you know someone who has one?

 

[Adcadet]

I have one...but how do I tell the OS to look to another drive? The install routene seems dead set on looking for a floppy drive when I hit F6. If I could specify a CD-ROM, USB drive, anything I'd be set.

 

[Adcadet]

Adcadet, surely you have a floppy drive lying around somewhere. The easiest thing you could do is open up your case, temporarily plug the fdd in, without physically installing the drive. It'll only take a minute!

At this point I refuse. Plus, my floppy port is pretty well hidden behind the IDE cables and the hanging basket that holds my HD's.

 

[Handruin]

Something in this thread might help.

 

[Adcadet]

Thanks Doug, but the question is how do I tell Windows during setup to look some place other than the floppy drive (another HD, a USB drive, or my other CD-ROM)?

 

[Handruin]

I was hoping that windows would find it when you try to load the drivers. Is there anything in your bios that can enable it as a bootable device? Unfortunately I can't try it because I don't have one. Maybe something in here will help:
http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php

I know you're not trying to boot from it, but I was thinking that it might emulate a floppy drive for windows to grab the driver from.

 

[Adcadet]

ah, I see.
I also realized that I have 2 SATA controllers on my board - a Via VT8237 which I was using before, and the Promise 20378. I switched the drive over to the Promise, hoping Windows would recognize the controller, but it didn't. I'm wondering if one would be preferable over the other. The Promise controller has an IDE channel that I've got a mass storage drive on (minus), but it's BIOS during boot is much shorter than that of the Via controller (plus).

Having to choose between Via and Promise for a controller....yuck.

Oh well.

 

[mubs]

Adcadet, I once had to do this (provide drivers on removable media) during W2k set up some winters ago.

IIRC, if you take out the Windows CD-ROM and replace it with another CD-ROM containing the drivers, WinSetup will seek for the floppy and then look at the CD-ROM. Once it's grabbed the drivers, it will ask for the Windows CD-ROM to be put in the CD-ROM drive. Try it.

 

[Adcadet]

rebooting...

 

[Adcadet]

Adcadet, I once had to do this (provide drivers on removable media) during W2k set up some winters ago.

IIRC, if you take out the Windows CD-ROM and replace it with another CD-ROM containing the drivers, WinSetup will seek for the floppy and then look at the CD-ROM. Once it's grabbed the drivers, it will ask for the Windows CD-ROM to be put in the CD-ROM drive. Try it.

This suggestion makes perfect sense to me, yet it did not work. What was MS thinking???

 

[blakerwry]

MS created this installer for winNT .. It has been only minorly updated since the mid 90's.. that's what they were thinking.. Initially, at this time a lot people had to boot from a floppy to start the setup because they didnt have a machine that could boot from the CD.

EVERYONE had a floppy.

Times have changed, but the NT installer has not. You have to be smarter and slipstream some drivers on your CD or stop whining and connect a floppy.

 

[Clocker]

...or use an i865PE board with the ICH5 controller (from what I hear).

I will be attempting to install WinXP on a SATA HDD using this setup soon

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Here is a thread from storagereview about it. Lots of good info but I never got around to trying it.

 

[blakerwry]

Times have changed, but the NT installer has not. You have to be smarter and slipstream some drivers on your CD or stop whining and connect a floppy.

Sorry, that came across as pretty critical. What I meant by that is that you have to be smarter to install using the NT installer now than you used to be previously because of the limitations of the installer not keeping up to date with current hardware configs. It was in no way meant to be critical of you personally.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Here are some more links that I think get to the meat of the problem:
MSFN Forum Thread and GreenMachines Guide

 

[Adcadet]

Times have changed, but the NT installer has not. You have to be smarter and slipstream some drivers on your CD or stop whining and connect a floppy.

Sorry, that came across as pretty critical. What I meant by that is that you have to be smarter to install using the NT installer now than you used to be previously because of the limitations of the installer not keeping up to date with current hardware configs. It was in no way meant to be critical of you personally.

no offense taken. I'm frequently smarter than most average trees and rocks, but an NT installer is a stretch most days. I'm slowly getting used to having to out-think MS. :wink:

 

[sechs]

You can either get a floppy (external USB may just work) or add the drivers to your install CD. MSFN seems to be the best source of help for the latter, in my opinion.

 

[Bookmage]

I ran into this problem with 2K when it first came out. What I ended up doing was installing to a temporary drive, download the drivers to the hard drive and install the controller. Than I used Norton Ghost to clone the hard drive to the new drive and at the same time make a backup, which I then filed it in the never use box. Nowadays, I just slipstream it and burn to cdrw. I also set it for unattended install with the right sif file. msfn has a great article on how to slipstream your own Cd's. Here's a link for reference http://unattended.msfn.org/

 

[Adcadet]

so it's Friday and I decided to once again do battle with my computer. I hooked up a floppy drive, and it didn't work - BIOS said bad floppy (after I enabled the floppy drive). Looking at the floppy port on the motherboard, it's missing 3 prongs, not the usual 1 that I see in other computers. So perhaps that's why the computer can't detect the floppy, and perhaps why I chose to disable the floppy when I first built the computer.

I did notice, that when I hit F11 to bring up a boot menu when the BIOS firtst comes on, it askes if I want to boot from a USB bus drive (when I have it plugged in). Great, me thinks, I can pop the drivers in there, and have Windows load them. No joy. I tried the USB port on my keyboard (which registered in the boot menu), and one on the back of the PC, but still no joy. Anybody know if there is any way to get the Windows installer to look for a USB device to load drivers? All the talk about slipstreaming drivers sounds like a lot of work (which I'll go through if I have to), but perhaps irrelevant - all the discussion requires an OEM disk - I think what my school gave me (from its download site) is retail (I don't get it).

 

[Mercutio]

It can't.

What you COULD do is slipstream the drivers you need into an XP install directory, and work from that.

 

[Mercutio]

Or I could just send you an appropriate sysprep'd ghost image, since I solved that problem some time ago.

 

[Adcadet]

Or I could just send you an appropriate sysprep'd ghost image, since I solved that problem some time ago.

Oh?

 

[sechs]

...by preinstalling the drivers into the sysprep'd image....