Windows

SATA Drives Or RAID Arrays In XP

Posted by on Apr 28, 2006 | 2 Comments

Some computers contain motherboards that support Serial ATA (SATA) hard drivers. The motherboards may have a separate dedicated SATA controller. You can determine if your computer has a dedicated chipset during the POST because a second screen may appear identifying the SATA hard drives.

When you install Windows XP, you may need to inform setup that your SATA hard drives are on a separate controller. You can do this during the text mode phase of setup by pressing F6 when prompted to install additional drivers. Then insert the floppy disk containing the SATA controller drivers. If you don’t supply the drivers, Windows setup may stop indicating that it cannot locate any hard drives.

The procedure for installing the SATA controller drivers during setup is as follows. As soon as the setup of Windows begins, a prompt will appear at the bottom of the screen to press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID drive. Setup will prompt you for the drivers which should be available on a floppy disk that came with the motherboard. Insert the disk into the floppy disk drive and press “S” to continue. Setup will look for the drivers on the floppy and present you with a list. Select the appropriate driver and press Enter. You will then be able to proceed with the installation of Windows XP.

[tags]microsoft,xp,diana huggins,sata,serial ata,raid,ata,post[/tags]

  • suneel

    Hi,
    Iam suneel iam not able to install even after your suggestion i am getting error like ” viamraid.inf, viamraid.sys in missing even after i download the drivers for msi k8mm-v board chipset plz suggest me for the smooth flow of installation

  • Lee

    I have spent the whole weekend trying to install XP Pro on to a WD Raptor 150, but it constantly failed. I also have a second 150. I set up the drives with no problem and they are seen by the bios . I kick off XP and it installs up to the point where it stops and request me to insert the sp2 disk. The sp2 is on the install disc, and it no longer see’s the disc or the CD player.
    I am running the updated EVGA nForce 680i SLI MB, BFG Geforce8800 GTS,
    4 gig Corsair ram… any Idea on how to get this system working? I am using my 300 gig ide until I find out to fix it. I also have Vista Ultimate in the same case but do the “un-plug” switch whin I want to play with Vista… I have a lot of web design to do and want to use the raptors for the speed…any advice??

    Lee