24 Year old Tech

I just purchased a new machine so I can use my current on as a server.  I had a decent tax return this year, so I splurged and got some pretty nice stuff.  I won't say it's 2006 tech, but it sure falls well into 2005.  I'm not here to brag, this is just the set up.

So, I get all done and submit the order.  Doh!  I forgot to buy a $10 floppy drive.  I guess technically, it isn't all that floppy, but you get the point.

Worse, the only reason I need it is for installing XP (raid drivers) and updating the BIOS. 

Even funnier, the last time I built a machine, the mobo maker (EPoX) supplied a bootable CD that would build the floppy for you.  Er...can't you just use the CD itself?

Does anyone more experienced in XP builds know if you can at least install raid drivers using a CD?

Are we ever going to get away from having a floppy cable and power for a device that isn't really neccessary?

If I'm not mistaken, there are computer resellers out there shipping PC's without a floppy drive.

Also, there is a utility out there, can't quite recall the name although it's on the tip of my tongue, which will allow you to customize an XP install disk to include whatever drivers you require. I believe that you can include the RAID drivers, burn the customized bootable install disk, and you're on your way.

I think the application is called BartPE... although I could be wrong.

I ran into some of the same stupidness with floppies with my Tyan dual opteron mobo: you need a floppy to update the BIOS.  I didn't have one in it.  Great...

What I wound up doing was grabbing one from another machine and used it for a few minutes.
Are you installing the OS on the RAID drive?  If not, couldn't it wait for post install?

Tyler Brown wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, there are computer resellers out there shipping PC's without a floppy drive.

Also, there is a utility out there, can't quite recall the name although it's on the tip of my tongue, which will allow you to customize an XP install disk to include whatever drivers you require. I believe that you can include the RAID drivers, burn the customized bootable install disk, and you're on your way.

I think the application is called BartPE... although I could be wrong.

Agreed.

And some suppliers like HP include a CD that'll will guide the Win2000/XP/2003 install disk to install all the drivers without problem. If your vendor don't supply one, you can make it yourself.

While I still believe buy and add a floppy drive is easier.

DoomBringer wrote:

I ran into some of the same stupidness with floppies with my Tyan dual opteron mobo: you need a floppy to update the BIOS.  I didn't have one in it.  Great...

What I wound up doing was grabbing one from another machine and used it for a few minutes.
Are you installing the OS on the RAID drive?  If not, couldn't it wait for post install?

Tyler: Thanks for the BartPE tip, I'll check it out.  I guess there must be a way to kind of 'slipstream' the drivers onto the install.

I was hoping to install the OS on a raided drive, so I'll have to figure out something.  It would be nice if the mobo/raid hardware people could figure out a way to fake it so that a raid setup looks like a regular SATA connection without needing drivers.

 

ScanIAm wrote:

DoomBringer wrote: I ran into some of the same stupidness with floppies with my Tyan dual opteron mobo: you need a floppy to update the BIOS.  I didn't have one in it.  Great... What I wound up doing was grabbing one from another machine and used it for a few minutes. Are you installing the OS on the RAID drive?  If not, couldn't it wait for post install?

Tyler: Thanks for the BartPE tip, I'll check it out.  I guess there must be a way to kind of 'slipstream' the drivers onto the install.

I was hoping to install the OS on a raided drive, so I'll have to figure out something.  It would be nice if the mobo/raid hardware people could figure out a way to fake it so that a raid setup looks like a regular SATA connection without needing drivers.

 

Ah, fishsticks.  I guess you're stuck buying/transferring a floppy to this computer.  If you have any old floppy drive in another computer, that ought to work.  Like I said, I temporarily transferred it (heck, I just hooked the cable and power up, and held it in my hand as I was letting it do its thing.

Sorry for the late reply, was debugging.

ScanIAm wrote:

Does anyone more experienced in XP builds know if you can at least install raid drivers using a CD?

Sometimes. If you boot from the RAID array, it's tricky and the driver must be installed at the beginning of your Windows installation.  If it's not your boot drive, you should be able to install the controller's and drives' drivers after windows install.  I've done it here no problem (but always boot off another drive due to experience with hard drives failing).

ScanIAm wrote:

Are we ever going to get away from having a floppy cable and power for a device that isn't really neccessary?

Eventually, yes.  For now, we still use these power connections for video cards and accessories.  As for the floppy connector, it doesn't matter how long we wait; someone will complain. There'll always be some guy who wants to make a Windows 98 boot disk or flash his BIOS down the road, no matter how many better solutions come along.

Can't you boot from one of those flash-pen thingies these days?

Also, check out deploy.cab on your Windows cd. It contains a couple of applications and help files to create a custom setup.

Or you could do a remote deployment if you have Windows Server 2003.

Slipstreaming SATA/RAID Drivers

Haven't tried myself but afaik this is the standard way of including additional drivers to your Windows installation

Dell doesn't ship computers with floppy drives, you have to pay extra for them. However they all seem to have CD writers on them. Unfortnatly I burn a lot of documents that I need to ship out to people on cds that could have fit onto a disk. Great a 700mb CD with a 700k excel sheet on it