Simple Reformatting Question

[herbster]

OK, All I want to know is whether I will need a floppy disk at any point when reformatting with windows XP on a system based on SATA hard-drives. Thanks in advance.

 

[duffers20]

Yep you will since you will need to install the sata controller when installing windows, or it will bsod. Also having a floppy disc with some partitioning tools on it like fdisk often makes the process easier

 

[giant384]

umm shouldnt bsod handle all of that stuff since your just formatting the harddrive and not installing a new one on to the motherboard

 

[duffers20]

I think that as you install windows, it adds the driver for the sata controller so i can see the drive during installation. if you format, it gets rid of the drivers and can't see it when it comes to install, I think, not totally sure though.

EDIT: I hit F6 anyway and just install the drivers anyway when I'm installing, just incase it buggers up during the installation.

 

[Asus]

I believe it will still have the driver when reinstalling over an existing install.

 

[Ren.182]

Doesn't windows just install the drivers if they aren't there?
If you're just installing over another copy of windows, then it will just use the old drivers, well, it did for me.

 

[Asus]

Doesn't windows just install the drivers if they aren't there?

Well windows XP doesn't know what SATA is. It does not have them on the install disk.

I believe that when you install SATA drivers via floppy disk they go to the MBR (Master Boot Record) so that when you boot and are outside of windows it can see the drive. It would not be able to boot to SATA if the drivers were only within Windows. When you boot via Windows XP CD and go through the format it only formats that partition that you create/select, not the MBR or any other partition.

 

[Ren.182]

Ahh yeah, you're right there. I think motherboards come with some drivers pre-installed. i don't remember ever installing any SATA drivers... though it was quite a while ago when i built this.