New Install Question

starfury6 · Feb 8, 2005, 02:53 AM

I'm about to build a new machine this week once the GFX cards arrive (Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe, dual, 6800 Ultras, Maxtor DM 10 SATA 250GB) and its the first time I will be installing a SATA drive at all, let alone as my boot drive.

My question is regarding the driver. Does Windows have drivers for SATA devices if SP2 is splistreamed or will I have to Function key load '3rd party driver' for the installer to see it?

Thanks

CDsDontBurn · Feb 8, 2005, 02:59 AM

if you're going to put the HDD in the primary SATA controller, then you just need to enable the SATA controller in the BIOS. If you will be setting up a RAID array, the RAID must be enabled in the BIOS, and you must push "F6" when it asks you to. Other than that, it should be a pretty standard installation of windows.

starfury6 · Feb 8, 2005, 03:07 AM

Excellent and thanks for the speedy reply.

No RAID just a single 250 on the primary SATA so it should be straightforward.

CDsDontBurn · Feb 8, 2005, 03:19 AM

yup....should be a straightfoward install like i said. Just be sure to have the primary SATA enabled like i said before

**dj_stick** · Feb 8, 2005, 05:27 AM

you will need to press F6 to install SATA drivers when windows is installing

starfury6 · Feb 8, 2005, 06:48 AM

Some confusion here.... what do I do!? Does this mean swapping the disc out for the nforce 4 driver cd at this point?

Also, one othe question for those of you who have installed an SLI system, do I enable SLI at default and have both cards installed? Or one installed and set up windows and then install the second after completion?

Thanks.

CDsDontBurn · Feb 8, 2005, 11:56 AM

in some cases you do need to install the SATA drivers. My system in particular i do not need to when installing windows. The SATA driver disk should be the one on the floppy disk.

so what i would do is, try and install windows first w/o pushing F6, and if that doesn't work, use the SATA driver disk and push F6 when it asks you to do so.

**MIG-31** · Feb 8, 2005, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by starfury6

Some confusion here.... what do I do!? Does this mean swapping the disc out for the nforce 4 driver cd at this point?

Also, one othe question for those of you who have installed an SLI system, do I enable SLI at default and have both cards installed? Or one installed and set up windows and then install the second after completion?

Thanks.

some motherboards come with the drivers on a floppy disk already.just leave the disk in the drive and also the floppy disk.

starfury6 · Feb 8, 2005, 02:14 PM

Thanks guys.

Any ideas on the SLI thing? I guess when I pick the cards up they might have some recommendations on installing them SLI.

Drakon · Feb 8, 2005, 05:45 PM

hmmm, i tried to do that with my sata drives, but it won't read the disk for some reason. it's an external floppy drive, btw. so i went ahead and installed windows as normal. everything seems ok, at least i think so....

starfury6 · Feb 9, 2005, 02:25 AM

Think I'll let M$Weirdos do it's thing first and see.

From a couple of reviews I read, they all installed Windows on SLI systems with both cards installed from the get go. Think I'll try the same.

starfury6 · Feb 14, 2005, 03:11 AM

For the record, I did indeed need to create a driver disk on another machine to be able to inster a disc for the Windows XP F6 3rd party driver prompt during initial install. Theres a directory on the Asus driver disc called Drivers/Chipset/Driver Disk and a utility inside called makedisk. SATA was found fine after that.

Damned it's fast....