Perenial problem of loading SATA drivers from a floppy

I face the perennial problem of loading Win XP with SP2 onto a clean box with SATA drives and no floppy disk drives.

In this case, the floppy port on the MB is not working, so it will not operate the usually floppy.

Can one of the wiz bang gurus here who know their drivers tell me if Windows will load the SATA drivers from a USB floppy drive viz a viz the standard floppy? If that's the case, I will go out and buy a USB floppy drive, just to get the job finished.

Are there any options at all to load the SATA drivers from say, a memory stick or must it be a floppy drive on FD1?

This business of loading the SATA drivers from a floppy is really slack! You'd think the boys at Microsoft would have included the common SATA drivers on the SP2 CD to avoid this problem. It's the 21st century.

 

Hi PeteC

Great to touch base with you again and thanks for your response.

I agree, as the SATA drives come in at a very low level, the USB port probably has no smarts at that instant.

Overcame problem by installing a floppy controller & drive on a temp basis.

Will create a slipstreamed disk now as backup and if a rebuild is necessary.

Cheers

 

Maybe it will be in the end but when I installed the most recent Vista beta I still had to install the SATA drivers the old fashioned way. Floppy disk.