SATA hard drives are faster than IDE drives.
SATAs are becoming much more popular because of their high speed and reliability. Newer motherboards are SATA-enabled, but if you are using an older motherboard, you'll have to install a SATA controller card. There is one little kink, however, when installing Windows XP on a SATA hard drive. XP doesn't come with all SATA drivers, so you may have to install them from a floppy disk. If you don't have a floppy drive, spend $10 and get one. You'll save yourself tons of time trying to work around not having one, and having that SATA drive is worth it.
Instructions
Installing the SATA Drivers
1. Install a floppy drive into your computer if you don't already have one. If you are using an older operating system like XP, you might as well have a floppy drive, too. It comes in handy, and a lot of XP-based software assumes an A: floppy drive anyway. Most of the time older computers have a slot for the A: drive floppy that nothing else will fit in anyway.
2. Copy the SATA drivers from the motherboard support CD to a floppy using your second computer. You only need do this if the SATA drive didn't come with the drivers already on a floppy. To find the files on the motherboard CD, look for a directory and subdirectory like this: \DriverDisk\SATA\. Select all the drivers. Manually load the drivers into the boot directory of the floppy disk drive (usually A:). The floppy should now contain the \pide and \sata folders along with the other files found in the SATA driver's directory. If the driver folder isn't on your motherboard support CD, it will be on the software CD that came with your SATA drive. If you don't have the drivers on CD, search online for SATA drivers and download them. The drive manufacturer probably has the drivers on its company website. Next, transfer the drivers to the floppy disk. Remove the floppy.
3. Power up the new computer and open the BIOS settings. Follow your computer's manual or the motherboard manual if you have a different motherboard than what came with your computer to enter the computer's Basic Input Output System (BIOS) settings. Usually this involves hitting the "Delete" key when prompted to during bootup. Set the first boot device to "CDROM" drive, then the second to recognize the hard drive, then the floppy drive. Different BIOS windows have different screens. The boot order settings are usually under Advanced Options, but you may have to search for it. Save the settings.
4. Insert the Windows XP installation CD into the computer and exit the BIOS to continue booting the computer. The XP installation disk should spin up and ask you if you want to install Windows XP. If it doesn't, simply reboot. The computer should open the operating system on the installation disk and begin installing Windows XP. Follow the prompts until a dialogue box appears a few minutes into the setup routine that says "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver." Press F6" then press "S." This brings up a window that allows you to specify an additional device when the next screen appears.
5. Insert the SATA drivers floppy into the floppy drive and press "Enter." The installation window will then prompt you to select a driver. Select "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows XP)." Wait for the SATA drivers to load. Windows XP can now recognize the SATA hard disk drive. Power down and continue to install Windows XP as usual.
6. Remove all floppies and CDs from your computer and close Windows down when the installation process is finished. Reboot and open the BIOS again. This time set the boot order to open the SATA hard drive first. If this is not an option offered in the BIOS, you can select HD0, but only if you don't have any IDE hard drives on your system. If you set the jumpers on the back of your old IDE hard drive to the "slave" setting, then you can select SCSI as the first boot drive and it should pick up the SATA drive. You may have to try it several times to get the setting right, particularly with older motherboards. Save the settings.
7. Exit the BIOS and reboot the computer. The SATA hard drive should spin up first and open Windows XP. Now comes the fun of installing all that software you have piled up on your desk.
Tags: floppy drive, hard drive, SATA hard, SATA drive, SATA drivers, your computer