- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Serial ATA, aka SATA is really only a connector cable change between your Hard Drive and your Motherboard versus the classic IDE cable connected hard Drives (which I mentioned are going to be harder to find with SATA gaining prominence). Very little difference between your old HDD and the newer ones save the fact that memory speed and size have exploded in the last year and a half. The intention is to improve airflow and homogenize device connectors inside the PC. End result: easier home builds and part swaps in smaller boxes. Can anyone say LAN party???
If you are having trouble installing Windows XP onto your PC, the connection cable to your HDD is not likely an issue. Formatted drives, ie FAT32 versus NTFS compatibility in the HDD, is. Particularly with XP Pro. XP Pro automatically formats a HDD to NTFS format, the new Windows format for hard drives. If, for some reason, your Hard Drive is incapable of formatting to NTFS (and yes, there are some out there) then XP Pro will not work for you. Also, SATA-150 versus SATA-300. Which hard drive do you have; does your motherboard support that HDD and if so is your SATA port setup as your secondary drive (your CD or DVD drive should be your primary read interface during installation so your PC reads the XP CD before trying to communicate with the HDD).
If you are having trouble with your SATA drive, another good way to check compatibility is to set it up as a secondary hard drive during a "dry run" instalation and use a HDD you know works. If your PC isn't able to talk to the SATADrive and Win XP Home/Media/Pro is unable to recognise the drive (ie, it does not show up as a usable drive in "My Computer" or you are unable to send/recieve data from the HDD) then you have a part compatibility issue. Of course, if you want to get Win XP on the SATA as your Primary drive, this will later require a reinstall.
Unless they've patched it into newer versions, Win XP Home is not yet capable of reading a NTFS formatted drive. If the drive is preformated to NTFS and you're trying to drop XP Home into a new system, your SOL.
OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer. Any software—retraction—any LEGAL software that totes itself as M$ is OEM since Microsoft is the only company that designs and manufactuers Windows Software. Any vendor buys it from them first before selling it to you. The old wives tale about Win XP "Master Disks" for Dell, HP and other hardware vendors, buying only a few software packages and distrubuting them onto all their systems, is a falsehood.
So your issue is with XP or XP Pro on your Hardware, which may be either out of date, not configured properly in BIOS settings for instalation, or incompatible with your Motherboard entirely.
While you do not need a special Motherboard to run a dual core (HyperThreading) Intel Processor, you will require an HT compatable motherboard if you want to get both processors to run. Just make sure the part says HT ready or HT compatable. If unsure, contact the vendor on the specific part.
HUGE ISSUE If you have any questions about parts you intend to purchase with a home build, consult someone who has knowledge of that part first (ie, asking in this forum if "this is a good graphics card?"). Ask your friends. Use 800 numbers to ask vendors about specific capabilities of the part. Do your homeowrk before you buy so you don't have to return it later or--worse still--have to learn to "live with it".
...As for my comments of bold, italics, and underline, my sugggestion was that you use the Bungie given Text Markup Tags supplied on the righthand side of any Reply/Create a new topic screen. And to the 400$ sans software issue. I stand by my original statment because I have built a 400$ system that is capable of playing Battlefield 2, Guild Wars and WoW with all graphics up to full (X-mas present for a friend). If you want to take up the challenge, it took a few months scrounging parts sites and a few more months waiting for rebates. But, as also stated, while that system will handle just about anything today it will also be out of date shortly. If home builds are your thing (and I assume anyone interested in this guide is looking toward building and not buying) go ahead and buy upper middle class parts. You spend more now, but save in the long run.
Gratz on the sticky
"-" Minus Sign
[Edited on 1/9/2006]