Can anyone help me installing windows xp pro - It says It will not recognise the Hard drive (single SATA) (however it is recognised in the self tests.I have used the makedisk.exe utility from the motherboard CD but after setup copies the file, I get an error saying "cannot copy file VIARAID.SYS". I am also unsure of the correct drivers as I do not intend to use RAID. Any help would be appreciated.

You should have a floppy with raid/sata driver on and when installing Windows you get a quick passing "hit F6 to install driver" as you are goinf into XP setup...and that is what you need to do. if you don't have floppy, go to motherboard mfgr site and download it.

as far as i am aware, you need whats called the "sil 3112 sata" driver. I used it for my sata drives , samsung and western digital in xp home and it works fine. the website that i downloaded it from was a professional business type site that i cant remember at the mo but i will keep looking. sorry thats no good to you at the mo. Have a look here to start.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/6821/ I havent used this site before buts its just one the sites that came up in google. As far as i know you need 6 files, they are: si3112r(system file), SIISUPP.VXD (virtual device driver), TxtSetup.oem (oem file), si3112r (setup file), si3112r.mpd (mpd file), SIWinAc (system file) and a readme file which actually makes 7 files in all. the package your looking for to download should ideally be a zip file that fits on a floppy or a package that you can install on a floppy. the total size of the files that i have is only 244kb. like i said it worked a treat for me. someone correct me if i've got any info wrong here. thanks.

also try here :
http://www.short-media.com/download.php?dc=62&p=1
these are 64bit drivers
as far as i am aware even if you dont use a raid you need the sata drivers for xp to even recognise your sata drive. again someone correct me if im wrong. thanks.
ps, if you try a google search on "silicon image 3112 download" or driver download you get good results.

It would help for you to specify your motherboard model--that way we could give you a link to the correct driver rather than speculate which controller you're using.

Exactly the drivers are usually High Point
or Intel...dave is describing one of those but there are more again so we need to know your motherboard to tell you the correct driver.

Thanks for you help everyone-Mboard is ASUS A8V deluxe

Go Here ad you will find all your drivers

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Now works like a dream - thanks everyone.

I also have a problem installing SATA on windows xp. I have the driver disk (floppy) that I made for my on-board raid controller. I did the whole "push F6" thing, but when it eventually gets to the point where it has to copy the driver files from the floppy, it says "Setup cannot copy the file: ......" and it cannot copy any of the files from the floppy. I definately have the right driver, because i got it from the cd that came with my M/B and also I got it from gigabyte's webisite, neither work! please help.

I have a problem.
i have a 200GB SATA HD. when i going to install windows xp only reads 130GB. and when i put it as slave windows doesn't reads it/