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

I am using an all windows version of WIndows XP Pro, And the folders that you put the driver files in are not all there. And I am clueless on the intel drivers. Can someone just send me an ISO? LOL. Any help would be nice. I am going to try and find a normal Windows ISO For this.

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]
AutoPartition=1
MsDosInitiated="0"
UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
OemSkipEula=Yes
OemPreinstall=Yes
OemPnpDriversPath="drivers\000059210;drivers\000118436;drivers\001123887;drivers\002116101;drivers\003127811;drivers\004113813;drivers\005114200;drivers\006122161;drivers\008133100;drivers\009140790;drivers\011153210;drivers\021201790;drivers\031238870;drivers\041273140;drivers\051294720"
TargetPath=\WINDOWS
repartition = yes

(In my WINNT.SIF file the "OemPnpDriversPath" is indented like the "repartition" line)

C:\xppro\$OEM$\$1\drivers ... is the location of my drivers with the folders named 000059210 ect.

Where am I going wrong? The rest of the OS installs fine, but my drivers are not recognized.

Is it a simple syntax error?

Thanks for your time

Jarvis

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]
AutoPartition=1
MsDosInitiated="0"
UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
OemSkipEula=Yes
OemPreinstall=Yes
OemPnpDriversPath="drivers\000059210;drivers\000118436;drivers\001123887;drivers\002116101;drivers\003127811;drivers\004113813;drivers\005114200;drivers\006122161;drivers\008133100;drivers\009140790;drivers\011153210;drivers\021201790;drivers\031238870;drivers\041273140;drivers\051294720"
TargetPath=\WINDOWS
repartition = yes

(In my WINNT.SIF file the "OemPnpDriversPath" is indented like the "repartition" line)

C:\xppro\$OEM$\$1\drivers ... is the location of my drivers with the folders named 000059210 ect.

Where am I going wrong? The rest of the OS installs fine, but my drivers are not recognized.

Is it a simple syntax error?

Thanks for your time

Jarvis

Well I followed the instructions and mine won't find the hard drive. What's wrong with my additions?



Now this plus adding this to my WINNT.SIF file;



And the disk will not find the Hard Drive.

I stuck my drivers in the AMD64 directory in another directory called DRIVERS\3114..... but the nlite install does something much the same..... or am I missing something here?

Sorry, I haven't been following the whole thread here. My apologies if I misunderstood your intentions. But if your objective is to integrate / slipstream the drivers into the source to allow for automated detection, then you also need to add the following into DOSNET.INF as well. In your case:

In DOSNET.INF, under the header [FloppyFiles.2], add "d1,si3114.sys". Do the same for the header [Files]

Hence,




In addition, some drivers may need to install additional GUI and DLL's as specified in the OEMSETUP.INF. Therefore it is strongly recommended to add the following into the UNATTEND.TXT answer file:



And last but not least, copy ALL the vendor-supplied files into the "\I386\$OEM$\$1\Drivers\RAID" subdirectory



NOTE. Some vendors also like to put their drivers into subfolders categorized by platform types (IBM loves doing that!). For example:



CAREFUL, although they appear to have the same filename, they are not always the same!! Using of the wrong platform drivers could lead to BSoD.

Anyways, in this case, either you modify the OEMSETUP.INF to tell it to find the drivers in the root instead OR you add the vendor specified subfolder within "\I386\$OEM$\$1\Drivers\RAID":



Hope this helps...

This post has been edited by iTwins: Oct 18 2006, 04:29 AM

Adding drivers without hacking the txtsetup.sif is easy. This can be achieved simply by adding a line in winnt.sif.
The problem with this aproach is that the drivers are all in expanded form. These can be upto 3 times in size of the original packed cab files. If you are creating a disk for multiple hardware it can get monstroulsy large. You can simply use a free utility like DriverMax & back up all the non ms drivers & include them in i386\drivers folder & these are recognised & installed perfectly.

I am working on a 200 mb CD where I am trying to incorporate the drivers on the CD itself. I can get The selfextracting cab file included in the cd but I can get it to expand on c drive only through runonce command. I have yo manually install the drivers which I am trying to circumvent.

I tried adding individual compressed files to the I386 folder & adding corresponding entries in the txtsetup.sif file but I get an error message about 0 (zero) value missing for the first such entry [SorceDisksFiles] listing.

What I am looking for is a either a way to expand the drivers at an earlier stage so that they get installed or some decent documentation on how to enter these extra entries.

BTW can any one suggest any books or links that explain registry entries for items like taskbar properties or folder options , etc.

This post has been edited by pmshah: Oct 21 2006, 06:26 AM

I have 2 questions:

1: Why do you suggest compressing the *.sys files? Can't you just copy them "as-is" to the i386 folder?

2: Why do you have to put the SATA Drivers first in the search order (01 before 02)? Does that have anything to do with the "100" entry in the front of the SourceDiskFiles entry?

I have Abit KV7-V what drivers do I need to download for my SATA please.
I dont have floppy and would like to follow your guide but I dont know what drivers to download and can't find the folder win2k.

http://www.abit-usa.com/downloads/driver/d...duct_name=KV7-V

Please help I'm a real noob.

This post has been edited by 4Share: Mar 24 2007, 04:14 AM

Thanks for the guide , worked as a charm (Intel ICH5R on ASUS P4P800 mobo)

Luckily Vista can browse other means of storage rather than FLOPPIES for Raid or SCSI drivers , you can add drivers through a cd or usb mass storage.

Great guide, thanks for the work you did... wonder if someone can place a link to this on the unattended page since the example they provided there is lacking this level of detail.

@4Share:
You shd d/l "VIA SATA Driver" and extract your driver(s)/settings from it.
But I ask, how did you get yr current XP installed? "F6" method? Pre-installed?
You may have a SATA HDD but are you SURE it is running in NATIVE SATA mode or actually in IDE SATA mode?
This method is for those wanting to install XP in NATIVE SATA mode.
I'm not familiar with yr mbo but most mbo now have this option in their BIOS. Yr current XP's Device Manager will
tell you if you are currently running in NATIVE or IDE mode.

@zillatech:
Compress to save space so that yr CD wont bloat as you add stuffs in future. Good practice.
The "100" refers to "100 = %spcdname%,%spcdtagfilei%,,\i386,1" in the "[SourceDisksNames.x86]"
section of the TXTSETUP.INF file, which maps to the \i386 folder on CD.
Best practice: let setup.exe find all yr important drivers first. IN THEORY, search order shd be unimportant since setup.exe
shd search in all your specified folders anyways. But this may affect the way setup.exe loads your drivers and it has been
mentioned earlier in this thread that most install issues are due to wrong order of drivers being loaded.

HTH.

Is this thread being read by the original Gurus? I have some questions for them which may simplify things further. LOL!

XEQ.

I have Mobile Intel® 945 Chipset on my Tecra, but there is no IAA for this chipset, just floppy utillity (F6flpy32.exe), how to extract drivers from there, because there is just F32.IMA in F6flpy32.exe and don't know what to do with this!?

thanx

Download Virtual Floppy Drive to open the ima file.

I have been attempting to slipstream my RAID drivers into my XP 64 DVD. How ever the instructions are failing me due to the fact that there is a file missing form the 64 bit version. Are the instructions here meant to be universal to both 32 and 64 bit versions? I don't wan't to buy Vista. I've never bought an operating system before...I'm scared.

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. KUDOS to the guy who started this tread and I commend you on your research and posting of your own findings that work for you. Some people don't seem to understand the theory that "what works for you doesn't necessarily work for everyone ALL the time.

I searched, as well, which led me to joining this site after reading the first five pages. I apologize for forwarding to the end to make this post prematurely.

I am working on a DELL Dimension 9150 and I use ERD commander. I was trying to find a way to add the drivers to the ERD Comm. Disk so that I could boot to the disk and run some of my favorite functions. I tried exactly what was in the first post and tried to implement it into the ERD disk instead of the windows disk, with no success.

I found this for those who have to work on Dell machines:

http://aspadvice.com/blogs/ssmith/archive/...stallation.aspx

good god...!!


waaaayyy to complicated. and no need for all that....

you don't need to that at all.


just point windows to source folder of drivers flash drive or cd or hard drive.

thanks,very useful,

System:SP1

ok how can add .cat fıle?