Installing XP on a SATA drive

If you want to use a SATA (Serial ATA) drive as your Windows system drive, then you’ve probably already found out that the Windows XP install CD doesn’t contain any SATA drivers, which means it can’t see your SATA drive, and therefore can’t install Windows onto it – unless you make your own XP install disc…

What you’ll need:

• A Windows XP Installation CD
• nLite (download it here)
• One blank CDR
• SATA drivers for your motherboard

Create a custom Windows XP installation disc
1. Make sure your got your SATA drivers on your desktop, or somewhere you can find them easily.
2. Download and install nLite
3. Start the nLite application, insert your Windows CD, and point nLite to the CD drive letter where you Windows CD is. Then select where to copy the files to. nLite will then copy your Windows CD to your hard drive.
4. When that’s done, click Next twice.
5. Click the “Drivers” button, and click Next
6. Click Insert>Single driver and locate your drivers inf file, then click NEXT
7. When nLite asks “Do you want to start the process?”, click Yes.
8. Click Next
10. Click Finish, nLite will close.

Burning the disc
1. Start nLite, and select the folder on you hard drive where you saved your Windows CD, then click Next
2. Select “Last session”, and click Next
3. Click the “Bootable ISO” button, then click Next
4. Leave all settings as default, click the “Make ISO” button, and select a destination on you hard drive for your ISO file to be saved to.
5. Once nLite has finished creating the ISO, you can close nLite and burn your ISO using your favourite burning software.

Now simply boot from your new custom XP CD – Windows should load the SATA drivers and recognize your SATA drive.