WinXP- IDE==> SATA

**leezer3** · February 16th, 2006, 04:49 PM

Hiya,
I've got a very funny WinXP problem on my hands here

When I installed WinXP, the machine had no floppy (And still doesn't), so the SATA drive was set to IDE emulation, and this worked perfectly. I'm now trying to get the SATA to run without the IDE emulation layer, but with no sucess

This is what I've done:
1. Turned off the IDE emulation- Stop 0x0000007B. Fair enough, it no longer has any drivers for the disk.
2. Switched the mode to SATA RAID (Single disk)- Boots in safe mode.
3. Search for new hardware- Nothing found.
4. Install manually the Silicon Image SI 3112 driver- Code 10, this device cannot start.
5. Reboot- No stop error, but instead a permanant Windows loading screen, bar speeds up & slows down periodically with some HDD access, but no boot even after an hour.

Thoughts?

-Leezer-

**Stalemate** · February 17th, 2006, 09:45 AM

Wait.

Seriously.

I've seen wait periods of close to 8 hours for this process to initially go through properly the first time with the Silicon Image controllers before I slipstreamed the drivers into my WinXP install CD.

I have the same on my Asus motherboard.

**leezer3** · February 17th, 2006, 01:53 PM

How fun

Time to hit the PC I think.

-Leezer-

**Gabriel** · February 19th, 2006, 03:41 AM

Hi,
Maybe do a repair install?
like booting from winxp (sp2) cd and doing a repair on the installation

worth the try
Gabriel

**leezer3** · February 19th, 2006, 06:46 PM

An update- 2.5hrs was the boot time, laggy as anything when in Windoze, and that &*^*& SATA controller was still not detected. (Code 10, removing & re-installing did nothing)
I considered a repair install, but it still comes back to the same problem- No floppy!
The next step is probably to try & do a N-Lite modded install, but as of the mo I think its not really worth the effort for the minimal increase in loading times.

-Leezer-

**arch0nmyc0n** · February 21st, 2006, 01:35 PM

Just wondering why you don't just attach a floppy drive?

**leezer3** · February 21st, 2006, 08:30 PM

Because I have no internal drives/ cabling handy to use & I really don't want to pay cash for a USB floppy.
Plus, this is a very low priority thing, definitely not for me to find a floppy that I would never use again! (All I'm trying to do is to speed things up all round a little)

Sidetracking slightly

- I have seen a couple of reports of people allowing a USB key to be formatted & used as a floppy. I think this depends on a mobo option I don't have, but anyone with any thoughts can feel free to post.

-Leezer-