Installing Windows XP on a Sony VAIO laptop with SATA hard drive #
Attempting to install Windows XP from CD-ROM onto a Sony VAIO PCG-3B2L (VGN-FW140E) laptop failed due to XP's lack of SATA drivers. Yes, there are guides like Install Windows XP on SATA without a Floppy which generally recommend using nLite to master a new Windows XP CD with the SATA drivers slipstreamed in. As that seemed like far too much effort, I downloaded the SATA driver from Sony, copied it to a floppy, and inserted it into an IBM USB floppy drive. Unfortunately, the Windows installer did not seem to recognize the drive. Options in the BIOS (F2 to access) were slim; on a hunch I enabled "External Device Boot" and restarted. Low and behold, the installer now recognized the drive! The final problem was which of the dozen or so listed drivers to select (turned out to be "Intel ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller" in my case).
/windows | Feb 11, 2009
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