I'm coming to you now from a fresh install of Windows XP on an Intel ICH5R controller. I installed Windows without having to use a floppy disk and I would like to explain how I did this. I have looked all over the internet for months - across many different forums to find a solution that works. Perhaps if this works for people it could be a sticky? I would also like to explain how to "slipstream" the Intel INF drivers as well for a total Intel 865 or 875 solution!

Now here we go.

I. Some information on my hardware setup:
I'm using an IC7-Max3 motherboard which contains 4 SATA ports controlled by a Silicon Image 3114 chip as well as 2 other SATA connections controlled by the ICH5R southbridge. I currently have two SATA hard drives in RAID0 on the Intel controller. Installing Windows to disks on either the Intel or SI controllers requires an "F6" driver before the disks are even visible to the OS. Just to cover all the bases, I added both the SI and Intel drivers to this CD.

II. Getting the files:
The first thing to do is obtain the driver files that we need. AFAIK Silicon Image doesn't provide generic drivers on their website; you have to go to the mfg of your particular board. I got mine from Abit here. There are a couple places to get the ICH5R drivers. You can get them out of the Intel Application Accel. package, the Intel "F6" diskette creation utility, or your OEM. Since we're trying to avoid using a floppy strike the diskette utility and let us use the IAA Package.

III. Extracting Drivers:
Now we need to get the necessary files out of the zip archives we just downloaded. The Silicon Image drivers DL'd from Abit are easy, just use Winzip or Winrar to extract the exe file to the directory of your choice. Let us say you extracted them to a directory called "SI". Go there and inside you'll see numerous files as well as a directory called "2kxp." Look inside and you should see 8 files totaling 355,730 bytes.

Note: You can safely delete readme.txt leaving only 7 files.

As for the Intel drivers we have to use a few command line switches. First extract the contents of iaar353_...exe using Winrar or Winzip to any location. Open the contents of the extracted archive and you'll see Data1.cab and Data2.cab, those files contain the drivers we need. To get the drivers OUT open a command prompt and navigate to the file "Setup.exe" (the one we just extracted).

At the command prompt type:

Where "<path>" is a destination folder on your hard drive. For the remainer of this document I will assume you used a directory called "temp" on the "C:" drive.

Navigate to c:\temp and there should be a folder called "Driver" open it and there should be 4 files inside coming to 286,347 bytes.


IV. Putting the puzzle together
Now that we have the essential drivers extracted we'll need to put them in their proper locations on the CD. I ended up putting a few copies in various locations and I am unsure if the redundency is actually needed, but I'm going to explain exactly what I did just to be safe.

The first place to add a copy is to the TXTMODE folder of your CD. That is: "c:\xpcd\$OEM$\TEXTMODE" Here you can dump the 7 Silicon Image files and 4 Intel files.
Location number two is the location specified (or will be specified) in Winnt.sif for OEMpnpDriversPath. On my CD this is:



I have added the Intel drivers (all 4 files) to folder 01 and the SI drivers (7 files) to 02. Here you need to have your SATA drivers in the lowest numbered folders. That is, don't have your printer drivers in 01 and SATA in 02.

The third and final location is in the i386 directory which will be located at the root of your CD. This time we only need to be concerned with the *.sys files of each driver set. That would be iastor.sys and si3114r.sys; you do not need SIWinAcc.sys for this step. I chose to compress these files and I recommend you do the same. Use the MAKECAB utility to do so. You'll end up with "iastor.sy_" and "si3114r.sy_" Now simply copy both of these files to the i386 directory. Now we're done copying files.

V. Modifying installation files
The first file to be modified is TXTSETUP.SIF which is in the i386 directory. This file tells Windows what files to load during the text-only portion of setup. We are going to modify the file to make Windows think that Microsoft put these new driver files in i386 and load them accordingly. Open up TXTSETUP.SIF and do a search for [SourceDisksFiles]. In my file it was on line 181. Now add this text EXACTLY AS SHOWN (except what's in the brackets).

Each driver listing needs to be on its own line...you'll get the format once you look in TXTSETUP.SIF. You can put this anywhere within the [SourceDisksFiles] section. I'm aware that there are multiple instances of [SDF]...I added my drivers to the first instance.

For a detailed explanation of what all those numbers and commas mean go here.

Still within TXTSETUP.SIF look for [HardwareIdsDatabase] around line 18270. These entries associate drivers with PCI device Ids detected on the machine. Within this section add these lines:


As you can see there is only one Id for Intel and multiples for SI which is OK. Now remember the file "txtsetup.oem" that we extracted from both driver sets? That's a text file which can be opened in Notepad and it contains the device Ids. If you're trying this out with other drivers and don't know the proper Id, look in txtsetup.oem or the INF file associated with that particular driver.

We now need to find [SCSI.load] in TXTSETUP.SIF. Look around line 18725. Add the lines below to this section.

One more section to go...

Find [SCSI] - around line 21059. Add this:


Here you can replace the text in quotes with anything you want. So if you want iaStor to be "Super Pimped hizard dizisk controllaz" then go for it.

That's it for TXTSETUP.SIF. The next file we need to create or modify is WINNT.SIF. If you're frequenting the unattended forums then you probably already know how to create or modify it. If you don't, check
this out.
Here all we need to do is point OEMpnpDriversPath to the locations we set up. Remember $OEM$\$1\Drivers\01? If that is the location of the Intel or SI files then WINNT.SIF should read like this...

If you have multiple folders like I do make sure that its all contained on ONE line (the forum software might wrap it here).

VI. Blaze it
Now its time to burn the files to a CD or preferably, a CD-RW.

VII. Test it
Testing the functionality of our new drivers is impossible with VMware or Virtual PC because these raid/SATA controllers do not exist within the virtual machine, which is also why we burned an actual CD instead of creating an ISO image. Restart and boot from the CD. When it says "Press F6..." you can simply ignore it, or do like I did and give your monitor the finger. Now watch the bar at the bottom of the screen very closely as it lists drivers being loaded. I have a fairly fast machine and I was able to catch a glimpse of "Intel® 82801ER SATA RAID Controller" and "Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATARaid Controller" being loaded. It does go by very quickly though, so pay attention. Now I believe at this point your computer will reboot and you'll be taken to the disk formatting and partitioning screen (depending on what is in WINNT.SIF). If you see your hard drive listed then you have success!

So far I have only tested this on a RAID 0 setup using the Intel controller, but I assume that SI will work because the driver does load during text mode. Hopefully this method will work for all "F6" drivers, so lets see if we can give Nforce and PCI slot based controllers a hand too.

Good luck!

This post has been edited by raskren: Feb 9 2004, 03:38 PM

Here's my TXTSETUP.SIF if anyone wants it. It has the Silicon Image and Intel drivers as I listed above.

try installing these drivers WITHOUT having to hack the TXTSETUP.SIF file - that's a bigger challenge. The txtsetup.sif method has been known for ages.

for more info, search for other posts by me, re: SATA

Why? Its only 10 or 12 lines that have to be added.

Ignore Krome

You got it right the first time, the same as the OEM instruction we provide defining mass storage at boot time

Good work at taking the time and for providing the SIF for people it applies to. It should go a long way toward them filling in the gap with their own - promise.highpoint.etc

But you do need to adjust your driver folder order.

as a chipset driver (and it is in the intel design)
it goes to driver folder 000

for third party controllers they go to the ias/nas folders later in the sequence

Spheris: Could you provide 'correct' folder numbering for us.
Cheers,
Steve

Yes, please elaborate.

The method I outlined above worked perfectly for my install, but it could always be better.

I'm glad it worked out. Also great explanation. Now the problem is to do it with slipstreamed hotfixes and updates. I used THIS guide and it worked fine. I have tried for quite a bit Using GreenMachine XPCREATE (that's the easiest way I know to have all updates slipstreamed) without any luck for RAID. DId you try your method with all hotfixes slipstreamed and fully unattended setup?

Yes, its SP1, Rollup, and all hotfixes to date. Most hotfixes install using svcpack. In the past I was not able to use RAID drivers AT ALL if oemPreInstall=1 in winnt.sif. That's why I'm so excited that this method worked!

>>Why? Its only 10 or 12 lines that have to be added.

from what i understand with the Setup.sif file, there is a section called MassDrivers or something (it's been a few months since i last did any unattended stuff). MS added this section to make it QUICK and SIMPLE to add RAID/SATA drivers to an unattended install.

by QUICK and SIMPLE i mean :-
o) Dump the drivers in a Folder
o) Tell the installation (setup.sif) which driver to use.

there. done. simple.

no need to search for lines and copy and paste, etc. No need to double check that what u've typed is correct. No need to research what the hell that gobbedly-gook in txtsetup.sif really means. wtf does PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&SUBSYS_61141095 = "Si3114r" really mean? what's dev_3114? subsys_61141095?

come on people!

don't just get a file and use it becuase people say 'this file makes your unattneded install work with a xxx SATA drive'. QUESTION EVERYTHING. I first found the above answer and had no idea what that ment. Yes, i could have look long and hard for what that ment, and repeat that process for any other SATA / RAID driver that poped into the office, so i looked for the generic solution and MS even provided one - albiet a bit buggy, but it seems to be the suggested way.

as always there are a million ways to do a single job. i personally find the above way a hack compared to other ways. Becuase it's a hack, doesn't mean don't use it, nor is it bad.

to use two more bad analogies -> it's all in the eye of the beholder, and whatever floats your boat.

just remember, please question everything suggested here so u understand what is going on, as opposed to just learning what files go where to fix a problem - that's not really learning persay.

anyways ...

@raskren
Could you post your winnt.sif file and take a screenshot from windows explorer of your expanded CD directories. It will be helpful.

@Pure Krome
It will be good if you could share this method with examples. I would be interested in it too. If you have a time please post step by step with short explanation (where needed). I will be happy to give it a shot and test it.

The OEM sort order for driver installation from .SIF

000=smbus/chipset
001=lan
002=usb/firewire/serial i-o
003=audio
004=video
005=nas
006=ias

*nas = network accessible storage
*ias = internal accessible storage/raid/fiber etc

considering the perpetual race to driver updates, it's probably time to create a set folder within the directory sort. out of order pnp sequence sorts are right now about 80% of either failed installs or underperforming and "troubled" installs reported from the OEMs in the last year and particularly post SP1 as the pnp system was revised and rolled to full acpi 2.0 specification to support HT and APIC support in the 865/875 systems


Reposted from the Discussion Thread for GreenMachine and I for collaboration on some of the clean up for xpcreate

Krome

I'm going to revise my previous harshness a bit with this. Yes, there are multiple means to the end.

Even our own approved one has its flaws in that end users have to be careful with doing it and be precise. But it does work in all cases where it is correct and support will respond to it if you have to contact them about it. Is it a hack

good question. Isn't nearly everything being done here that alters the original disc structure a hack?
Its all relative, but don't s*** on someone because they made some headway with doing it, right way or wrong way as long as they got somewhere with it. Otherwise I'd just be everywhere in here all day long smacking people for the most rediculous things.

Amen!

But sometimes, a hack is the only way, like UXTHEME. And considering all the hair-pulling over these drivers, and working solution is worth learning from. I read, with interest, lots of hacks all over this forum, even though I still feel quilty just replacing an empty SVCPACK.INF with my own. It all adds insight needed to find out what floats my boat.

Anyways, raskren has made more progress than me right now, on this, so thanks for posting your findings.

One question about testing these CDs: How are these CDs supposed to behave in VPC, or a NON-SATA/RAID system? I ask because of the need to add a PCI IDE Controller mentioned in THIS article implied (to me ...) sounded like it would not work without an implicit IDE driver.

... I got most of the loose ends tied in XPCREATE (for the moment), so it looks like this is my current quest ...

Yeah Chrome...already tried that. I have done extensive reading of MS KB articles for months now. When I use mass storage line in winnt.sif it: refuses to copy the necessary files over, causes a bsod, or iastor.sys generates a cryptic error message.

This is the only method that has EVER worked for me.

Why don't YOU do a search at www.microsoft.com for txtsetup.sif. Microsoft gives you instructions on how to modify this file.

I spent weeks researching, burning cds, and testing and now I want to share an easy method that WORKS for me. Just look at the number of F6 installs that don't work for people on this board. I don't understand why you must criticize when I'm providing free help for a widespread problem!