New Computer

[Renzatic]

I wouldn't recommend ditching the floppy drive if he's going with SATA...not unless he has the latest and greatest CD release of Win XP SP2 or Vista.

 

I hadn't used a floppy in years, but when I upgraded to my current comp, I had to have a disk to install SATA II drivers so the OS could recognize the drive. I could write a book about the pains I went through finding not just one, but two working floppy drives so I could make a bootable disk on one comp to install WinXP on the other. Needless to say it ended up costing me money and more than a few hours out of my life.

 

So don't ditch the floppy, you'll end up needing it if you want to install drivers ahead of the OS or flash your BIOS.

[Komag]

That's crazy. I mean, I believe you, but situations like this ought not to happen nowadays! Couldn't you burn a bootable CD on one comp to use for the other?

[Renzatic]

It might work with Vista, but XP requires you to have a floppy to install any 3rd party drivers during the OS installation process. It's set up like that so you don't have to remove the XP CD, but still...if it wern't for that you wouldn't have a need for a floppy drive anymore.

 

You can get around the floppy problem if you know what you need to install ahead of time. There are a handful of programs out there that let you insert drivers on an XP installation disc. All you need to do is make an iso of the XP CD and use the program to plug in the drivers and it'll install as usual. Kind of a pain in the ass, but if I knew about it beforehand it wouldn't have been nearly as hairy as what I went through.

 

Oh, and one thing I thought was the utmost extreme of absolute stupidity. The bootdisk drivers came on a CD. Of course in and of itself that's not too weird, but that CD's sole purpose was to copy the program from it to a floppy. Beyond that it had no other use.

 

Why didn't they just package a floppy in with the drive and save me that extra step?

[Fingernail]

What?

 

I just built a PC with no floppy drive, a SATA II hard drive and installed XP fine with absolutely no need for a floppy at any point during the install process.

[Arumakani]

So you guys reckon that £1100 was a good price? There's no monitor with it, but I can pick a decent 19" one ok.

[Fingernail]

doesn't sound like a bad deal

 

put it this way, I paid about £1300 for my rig which is almost exactly the same spec (I had a 512Mb 7900 GT instead of the GT2), but I also had a huge tft monitor and a low-level pro sound card so it all evens out I reckon.

[Arumakani]

Cool. I had to pay a credit card surcharge unfortunately, but atleast I have the back up of it. Total price was £1138.50. I'll get a 19" monitor in a while. I have a 27" Toshiba HDTV, so it should be fine for the time being.

[Renzatic]

What?

 

I just built a PC with no floppy drive, a SATA II hard drive and installed XP fine with absolutely no need for a floppy at any point during the install process.

 

You might have a more recent version of XP than I do. Any disc with SP1 or 2 should have the proper SATA drivers onboard, but I have an old pre-service pack XP CD and don't have that luxury.

[Dram]

You might have a more recent version of XP than I do. Any disc with SP1 or 2 should have the proper SATA drivers onboard, but I have an old pre-service pack XP CD and don't have that luxury.

 

*cough* ISOHunt *cough*

[Komag]

My WinXP disc is from the first week it was released, back in fall '01 I believe. I was SOOOO glad for it, as all my crappy Win 98 daily crashes stopped overnight.

[Renzatic]

*cough* ISOHunt *cough*

 

Bill Gates will break my knees if I steal XP Pro again.

[Dram]