SATA Drivers included???

kersey · 21 Oct 2009

Hi there,

Am expecting to receive my copy of Win 7 tomorrow, have got my drivers ready but am wondering whether there is an issue with installing Win 7 onto a SATA drive.

Had issues when installing XP as it wouldn't recognise the SATA drive and wouldn't load the drivers either. Ended up making a slipstream disk with the drivers on which took a while to get right.

Does Win 7 install onto a SATA drive straight out of the box or will I have the same problems as I had with XP??

Any info would be appreciated :)

DarkXeno · 21 Oct 2009

With Win7 there are a lot more drivers on the disc then XP ever had. But to answer your question more clearly we would need to know what mobo you have and the SATA chipset is. I know a lot of the users here have SATA drives and have installed Win7 with no problems but in order to be in the clear more info is needed.

Iomegaman · 21 Oct 2009

If you are having installation problems when your copy of Windows 7 arrives, try disabling "SATA Native Mode" - or similar - in your BIOS.

After installation it will be safe to renable it as the drivers will most likely to be found during the installation process anyway.

Tom

Jordus · 21 Oct 2009

XP was released before the prevalence of SATA. It was out but not really widespread on desktops. They added some drivers with later disc presses that had new service packs and such but the builtin drivers were never what they should have been.

Not only are there many more builtin drivers in Windows 7, the process for loading a driver when needed is also tremendously easier than before. You can use a floppy drive still, or a thumb drive, or external USB HDD, etc.

kersey · 21 Oct 2009

Thanks for your answers...if it doesn't work straight off the disc I've got the drivers that I can load onto a usb stick or will try the BIOS method so I think I've got all bases covered

swarfega · 21 Oct 2009

I always prefer to download the latest drivers direct from the manufacturer's website rather than load possibly outdated ones from the disc.

Iomegaman · 21 Oct 2009

swarfega said:

I always prefer to download the latest drivers direct from the manufacturer's website rather than load possibly outdated ones from the disc.

Very true, but using the Windows disk ones for installation shouldn't be a problem - they can be updated from within Windows afterwards.

Iomegaman · 21 Oct 2009

Have just run the begining of the installation in VMWare to show you the device driver installation screen.

As mentioned by a previous post, it really is very easy with Vista/Windows 7 to install SATA drivers during the installation process:

kersey · 22 Oct 2009

Iomegaman said:

Have just run the begining of the installation in VMWare to show you the device driver installation screen.

As mentioned by a previous post, it really is very easy with Vista/Windows 7 to install SATA drivers during the installation process:

Excellent, will get the latest ones from Intel's site and put them on a usb stick just to make sure I've got the latest ones installed

gregrocker · 22 Oct 2009

Over the past year, I have been continuously amazed that Win7 installer drivers are often more recent than the manufacturers.

They have spent a fortune on WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) which is testing and beta releasing the drivers in partnership with the manufacturers.

The future begins tomorrow, with the greatest invention since the computer.