Posted September 12, 201212 yr I just replaced the hard drive on my grandson's pc. The PC is a Dell Dimension 8300. I bought the HD on ebay at a low price. I used seatools to check it and it passed. I also did a complete erase. I have my Windows XP CD and not sure what I need to do. I read some where that the SATA drivers are not available on XP. Can someone please provide me some detailed instructions on how to correctly install XP on the hard drive? Thanks EG The XP CD only has SP1 on it. Where can I get the needed SATA Drivers?
September 12, 201212 yr I did some googling, looks like you can't get them from Dell. I did find them on Softpedia: http://drivers.softp...load-40564.html The problem is getting them in there, XP won't even see the drive without the drivers.You can use a floppy with the drivers during the install, but I think you need to have XP SP2 at least (and who uses floppies these days?). You can solve both problems by slipstreaming a service pack (might as well go with SP3) and the drivers into XP. In this way you create a customized installer image with everything you need in it, just burn it to a CD and install from that. There's a utility that makes this fairly easy, called Autostreamer - I've used it, it's not difficult. There's a good tutorial and download links here:http://www.ubcd4win.com/slipstream.htm If you don't want to go to that much trouble, just get Win 7. More expensive, but faster and easier; needs 2 GB of RAM to run well.
September 12, 201212 yr Author I did some googling, looks like you can't get them from Dell. I did find them on Softpedia: http://drivers.softp...load-40564.html The problem is getting them in there, XP won't even see the drive without the drivers.You can use a floppy with the drivers during the install, but I think you need to have XP SP2 at least (and who uses floppies these days?). You can solve both problems by slipstreaming a service pack (might as well go with SP3) and the drivers into XP. In this way you create a customized installer image with everything you need in it, just burn it to a CD and install from that. There's a utility that makes this fairly easy, called Autostreamer - I've used it, it's not difficult. There's a good tutorial and download links here:http://www.ubcd4win.com/slipstream.htm If you don't want to go to that much trouble, just get Win 7. More expensive, but faster and easier; needs 2 GB of RAM to run well. I will try and see if I can follow your suggestions. The pc does have an "A" drive. And I do have some diskettes.
September 12, 201212 yr I would not buy a used hard disk drive. Sure a graphics card, CPU or RAM, but not a hard disk drive.
September 13, 201212 yr I did some googling, looks like you can't get them from Dell. I did find them on Softpedia: http://drivers.softp...load-40564.html The problem is getting them in there, XP won't even see the drive without the drivers.You can use a floppy with the drivers during the install, but I think you need to have XP SP2 at least (and who uses floppies these days?). You can solve both problems by slipstreaming a service pack (might as well go with SP3) and the drivers into XP. In this way you create a customized installer image with everything you need in it, just burn it to a CD and install from that. There's a utility that makes this fairly easy, called Autostreamer - I've used it, it's not difficult. There's a good tutorial and download links here:http://www.ubcd4win.com/slipstream.htm If you don't want to go to that much trouble, just get Win 7. More expensive, but faster and easier; needs 2 GB of RAM to run well. I will try and see if I can follow your suggestions. The pc does have an "A" drive. And I do have some diskettes. Good luck with that. A slipstreamed disc would be handy to have anyway, but if you'd rather do the floppy, it's your project. I would assume the drivers from Softpedia are intended to be used on a floppy, but they don't say anything about that.
September 14, 201212 yr Author I did some googling, looks like you can't get them from Dell. I did find them on Softpedia: http://drivers.softp...load-40564.html The problem is getting them in there, XP won't even see the drive without the drivers.You can use a floppy with the drivers during the install, but I think you need to have XP SP2 at least (and who uses floppies these days?). You can solve both problems by slipstreaming a service pack (might as well go with SP3) and the drivers into XP. In this way you create a customized installer image with everything you need in it, just burn it to a CD and install from that. There's a utility that makes this fairly easy, called Autostreamer - I've used it, it's not difficult. There's a good tutorial and download links here:http://www.ubcd4win.com/slipstream.htm If you don't want to go to that much trouble, just get Win 7. More expensive, but faster and easier; needs 2 GB of RAM to run well. I will try and see if I can follow your suggestions. The pc does have an "A" drive. And I do have some diskettes. Good luck with that. A slipstreamed disc would be handy to have anyway, but if you'd rather do the floppy, it's your project. I would assume the drivers from Softpedia are intended to be used on a floppy, but they don't say anything about that. The drivers are available on dell. I've saved them to a usb and when I get XP installed I will add the drivers. Wish me luck!
September 14, 201212 yr I couldn't find it from Dell, guess I didn't search hard enough. If the XP install disc sees the drive, you're home free - if not, you need the floppy. If you need to do that, you just press F6 when prompted during the install, and follow the prompts. Also, I'm not sure it will work with SP1. Worth a try, anyway - best of luck to you.
September 15, 201212 yr Beware: Mainstream support ended on April 14, 2009. Extended support for Windows XP with SP3 ends on April 8, 2014.
September 21, 201212 yr Author Got Windows XP installed. Installed SP2 and SP3. Got all my drivers, added ram and it's running great.
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