SPCR

Hello:

A while back I asked about installing the SATA driver on an Asus motherboard, and the answer was to download the installer which made the floppy for you, and hit F6 at the beginning of installing Windows -- so I thought it would be a cinch to do the same on an ASROCK K8S8X Athlon 64 motherboard.

But, noooooo!!! The CD-ROM that came with the motherboard is *supposed* to install the SATA driver on a floppy for you -- but it doesn't work! It uses FreeDOS to boot with and it just stalls before the installer ge5ts going...

And, the ASRock site doesn't have a *floppy* installer for the SATA driver -- just a Windows installer, so what bloody good that is, I don't know!

Can anyone help me out? Please? I need to get this built for a client -- and so I can see how it folds!

Well, I don't know if it will help you or not, but you could check out:

http://www.freedos.org/

Somehow, you must get a floppy made, so you can press F6 in the Windows installer.

It just occurred to me--I can't remember for sure, cause it's been a long time since I've installed Windows, but can you press F6 and have the installer load the driver off the CD-ROM?

but can you press F6 and have the installer load the driver off the CD-ROM?

No, Windows checks the floppy drive only, for drivers.

Neil,

I couldn't stop chuckling to myself about "freedos." Is it "let my dos go," or "dos for free?"

Heck, I didn't know that SIS had a sata deal. What kind of sata chip is it? Via, Promise, or what?

M

I haven't installed XP or 2000 myself with SATA, but on the assumption the floppy that came with my SATA mobo is indicative, and that your SATA controller is a Via 8237, then seems to me all you need on the floppy is

-txsetup.oem
-Winxp directory with
- viasraid.inf
- viasraid.sys

which you could manually construct from what is on the CD?

Alternatively, something like the MSI SATA drivers may actually be better at building a floppy?

Hello:

Thanks, for your input folks. The ASRock tech support department set a new record (IME) and got me the answer: the driver is the same one as used on the K7S8XE+ motherboard! You can download the driver from ASRock Web Site:

Serial ATA For Floopy Disk

For All OS Platform *
217KB SiS SATA Driver For Floopy Disk , Ver. 1.03 with Microsoft LOGO.

http://www.asrock.com/support/Download/dl_k7s8xep.htm

Even though it is apparently for a "floopy" disk...

So, my Samsung 160GB RAID 1 array is nearly formated! And I will be adding (at *least* temporarily) an Athlon 64 3000+ to my Folding effort!

Neil, I am surprised you needed to do this ?

I have an Asus p4p800 deluxe, and windows xp SP1 just installed on the Seagate Serial ATA... no drivers required at all ... It just worked like IDE.