Is There Any Way to Install SATA drivers from a USB?

[MrControversial]

I don't have a floppy drive, but I do have a USB pin drive because I find floppy drives utterly useless these days. Is there a way to get Windows to recognize my USB drive to grab the SATA drivers off of them?

 

[kranky]

I have never heard of one. AFAIK, XP will only use a floppy to load drivers at F6 time.

But it looks like you'll have to retract your statement about floppy drives being utterly useless.

 

[ribbon13]

What's with you people? Don't you know how to slipstream drivers?

 

[Traire]

Yeah, slipstreaming is the only way to go about Windows installation on SATA without a floppy drive.

 

[imported_bushman]

HA! ribbon13 I wa just gonna recommend that. Mr. Controversial, if you are going to consider slipstreaming your drivers, go to pcstats.com for a pretty good tutorial that addresses slipstreaming sp2 and drivers. Good luck!

 

[footbal07]

on my dfi with the nf3 250gb i didnt even need a floppy during the installation. it seems like there is pretty decent support for sata controllers today, but other then that you can either slipstream like they said, or get a $10 floppy drive.

 

[MrControversial]

Slip-streaming works for me because I'm using a SP slipped-streamed version of XP anyways. I don't know why I didn't think about that. Well, I guess you guys aren't useless after all. LOL...

Edit: It's NF4 SATA drivers so there's a good chance that there's no default support for them. With my Gigabyte motherboard, I didn't need to install drivers.

 

[MrControversial]

I need a link to the driver slipstreaming guide.

 

[BigPete]

Ummm, nForce 3 and 4 both support SATA natively. You dont need to do anything special. Am I missing something here?

 

[her34]

Originally posted by: BigPete
Ummm, nForce 3 and 4 both support SATA natively. You dont need to do anything special. Am I missing something here?

what do you mean support natively?

 

[BigPete]

You dont need to install any drivers to use SATA since its supported natively. I'm not really sure how else to explain it. I guess the best way to say it is that the SATA controller is seen as an IDE controller to Windows. I have a system that uses ALL SATA and I even have the IDE controllers disabled in the BIOS and I did not need to use the F6 method nor did I have to slipstream drivers... everything just worked! Which is so nice.

 

[her34]

Originally posted by: BigPete
You dont need to install any drivers to use SATA since its supported natively. I'm not really sure how else to explain it. I guess the best way to say it is that the SATA controller is seen as an IDE controller to Windows. I have a system that uses ALL SATA and I even have the IDE controllers disabled in the BIOS and I did not need to use the F6 method nor did I have to slipstream drivers... everything just worked! Which is so nice.

well, i don't understand why some sata need drivers and others don't. why can't all sata be supported natively? is it because of how bios is made, or chipset, or something else?

also, why is it that you never need to install ide drivers, but you sometimes need to install sata drivers. you could use a new mobo with new chipset that came out after windows xp, but it still doesn't need drivers

 

[BigPete]

It's because of differing chipsets, BIOS' and the way they all work together. A lot of times, the SATA support is only available via a 3rd party chipset (so its not "native") and windows see's and treats this like a pci add in card so thats why drivers are needed. However, with some chipsets, such as the nForce3 and nForce4 the SATA support is actually provided by the main chipset and works with the BIOS to provide a "native" solution. Like I said, to windows, its just another IDE controller. And the reason you can use a new chipset on a new mobo after windows came out and not need drivers is because they all use IDE which has been around forever.

 

[fishmonger12]

i know nforce 3 has an integrated sata controller and i have an additional add on sata controller on the board. the controller on the board requires drivers to be loaded, but the chipset sata controller does not. i just plug em in just like an ide drive