Windows XP/SATA drivers + no floppy drive

[rave]

hi,not sure if this goes under the Drives forum or the XP forum. but every thing is windows fault anyway so here goes:

my sister got a new laptop, but it came with some crap linux distro installed on it. im not going to make her change to ubuntu although she doesnt mind. she still however wants windows xp.

but her laptop doesnt have a floppy drive (and we dont have a external USB floppy drive) and the windows xp installation CD cannot read her SATA HDD. it says that no hard disk was found. i have seen a few articles on how to slipstream your windows XP CD with the drivers installed on it but im leaving that to a last resort.

does anyone have any suggestions on how to get by this? i never thought i would run into problems

[Negeva]

Tempted not to answer after the 'crap linux' remark, but alas I'm a kind sole.

Double check the BIOS as they're should be an option to use it's onboard RAID driver or set it as an IDE drive.

[glc]

Go *get* a USB floppy drive.

[rave]

i decided to just make a slipstreamed CD. im sure it violates some part of the EULA but incase my sister ever wants to reinstall windows it will be much simpler for her. went along without much of a fuss, XP is installed now. now all i have to do is find the 50 other drivers that are missing :|

[glc]

Slipstreaming doesn't violate anything.

[Negeva]

Even Microsoft have tuts on how to slipstream updates into their OSes and Office suites.

[kev7555]

Why bother? Ubuntu is the closest thing to a windows GUI I've seen yet.

I just switched to it about a month or so ago and was running it as confidently as windows within about 30 minutes. It comes with firefox web browser, e-mail program, office programs, media player, etc, etc, etc.

Let her try it, she might like it.

[rave]

Originally Posted by kev7555 Why bother? Ubuntu is the closest thing to a windows GUI I've seen yet. I just switched to it about a month or so ago and was running it as confidently as windows within about 30 minutes. It comes with firefox web browser, e-mail program, office programs, media player, etc, etc, etc. Let her try it, she might like it.

Originally Posted by Negeva Tempted not to answer after the 'crap linux' remark, but alas I'm a kind sole.

lol.you guys think i have something against linux. i dont. i use it on my laptop. in fact im using ubuntu right now. what they provided was far from ubuntu, and my sister needs things like quicken and other customized office applications to run for her. i will probably install ubuntu but as a dual boot to give her the option. everything seems to work fine, however there is no sound. supposedly microsoft has not released whql drivers for this laptop so im going around trying every damn driver i can find.