Before i install my operating system on the ata drive, or the sata drive, which ever ones i choose to have in there, how do you install the os on it, if you cant use the hdd untill you high level format it? i can see how this can be done if u already have an hd, and ur adding another, but if everything is brand new, and u first boot, how does the setting up the new hard drive for sata, or ata work from there?
Not clear on what you mean... but I let see if this is right. You have a new HD and you need to install the OS on the HD. If this is the case, then you need to boot from you Windows XP CD, it will recognize your HD, and ask where you want to install Windows. You will have the option to format the drive after you create and activate a partition on the new HD. The prompts are pretty self explanatory. In the event that you are installing a new SATA drive, which motherboard are you using. You may need to load a 3rd party driver during the Windows XP install for the RAID controller in order to get the setup app to recognize the SATA drive. Let me know what mobo you are using, and whether you are installing a SATA drive or IDE.
With Windows NT OSes (NT, 2k, XP) and most distributions of Linux (well all that I've seen) have the tools to format the hard drive during setup. The reason you need to format the drive is to lay out a base for the OS to work with. It establishes a basic structure for data to be placed. You can think of the formatting kinda like roads, in that they tell cars where they should be. The rest of the question has been explained in the above post.
yeah ive delt with new hd's before when formating them, but that was when i had another hard drive with the xp already on it to boot to format the hdd from the software that came with it. so your saying that if i have a brand new drive, after i boot my pc for the first time, it will see i have one, and then i can take it prompt by prompt there, just as if i were reinstalling windows? mobo=http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-492&depa=0
You don't need 3rd party software to format your hard drive. XP will see you have a hard drive, as long as it can detect the controller the hard drive is on---in which case a driver would need to be provided (as previously documented) for the OS to recognize it. If it's seen in BIOS and the controller it's on is enabled, the system will see it, regardless of an OS or not.
The 3rd party driver would only be needed if you are installing Windows or another OS on this new SATA HD. If you are simply adding a additional hard drive to your system, and it just happens to be SATA, the the previous post is correct. Windows XP will recognize the HD if the controller is enabled in the BIOS, and you have loaded the proper driver for the controller in Windows.
