virtualbox.org

Hey guys. I am new to the forums but not new to the great software known as VirtualBox. I love the great work the devs are doing with it. I wanted to make a post which I feel should be added to the sticky about installing an XP guest with sata ahci intel drivers and the F6 method. The sticky (http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9575) is mostly correct for installing Windows XP and the sata driver at install time but is missing one step. The way that tutorial is written after formatting your hdd, the setup will not be able to copy the ahci driver files from the disk. What you have to do is take the driver floppy image linked in that tutorial and make a change. In linux you can just mount the floppy image. In the root of the drive make a folder called $OEM$. In that folder make another folder called TEXTMODE. in the textmode folder make a copy of every file in the root of the floppy. There should be 2 copies of that set of files now. One in the root of the floppy and one in A:\$OEM$\TEXTMODE. Then load the floppy image or real floppy if your using one into your xp machine. Start the XP setup and press F6 when prompted. Follow the other tutorial and select Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M) as the controller. Then wipe your drive and after the format you will not get file copy errors and you now have a working XP with a proper ahci setup from the installer and not the driver swap trick everyone talks about.

The method described above worked flawlessly. Here's what I did on my Linux Mint (Ubuntu) installation to make it work:

NOTE: I did not rename any files, everything mentioned below is a description of how to make the necessary alterations to the driver image file when none of the files (including the image) were re-named.

First I downloaded the required SATA driver found here. Afterward I proceeded to use the Archive Manager to extract F32.IMA from setup.exe (Remember to extract setup.exe from f6flpy32.zip). With the image placed on my Desktop, this is what I used to mount, alter, then use the image to install Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit):

1. Open the Linux Terminal.
2. Enter the following commands to mount the image in your Linux installation: Explanation of the above code:
The first command (cd /home/*username*/Desktop) will navigate the Terminal to the location of our image file (F32.IMA). This just reduces our work later as we mount the image.
The second command (sudo mkdir /media/floppy1/) makes an empty directory in which we can mount our floppy image.
The third command (sudo mount -o loop F32.IMA /media/floppy1/) Tells Linux to mount our image (F32.IMA) in our new directory (/media/floppy1/).

3. At this point a new icon named, "floppy1" should appear on your Desktop. Open it.
4. Now right-click somewhere on the background of the folder (floppy1).
5. Select the option reading, "Open as root." After entering the password confirm you are still looking at the mounted floppy image (files in the image include: iaahci.cat, iaahci.inf, iastor.cat, iastor.inf, iastor.sys, license.txt, readme.txt, txtsetup.oem).
**6. Now proceed to create the new folder $OEM$ and inside that folder TEXTAREA (these folders are not case-sensitive, don't worry about it if Linux decides to make them all lower-case).
**7. Afterward I copied all the files listed in the main directory of the floppy (as the author mentioned) then pasted them into the TEXTAREA folder.
**8. Now I "ejected" the mounted floppy by pressing the eject icon next to the "floppy1" text on the left inside the "places" menu.
9. Now I opened VirtualBox, selected the machine on which I wanted to install Windows, and pressed "Settings."
10. From here I proceed to the floppy section, enabled the floppy drive, and chose the option, "Image File."
11. Afterward I clicked the icon to the right of the selection box to add a new image file to the list of possible image choices.
12. Now I clicked the "Add" button, navigated to my Desktop, selected, "All Files" from the menu on the bottom right, selected, "F32.IMA," then pressed Open.
13. Now I selected the newest item on the list (F32.IMA) and pressed Select. The modified image file should now be mounted to the floppy drive of your VirtualBox system.

** = To perform these steps you will have to utilize root privileges. As mentioned, to obtain the privileges all you have to do is right-click the background of the folder and select, "Open as root."

After mounting the image I started my VBox System, pressed F12 to enter the boot menu, chose the CD drive and booted my Windows Installer. Of course, I pressed F6 multiple times when Windows Installer asked if I needed to install AHCI or RAID drivers. A few moments later Windows prompted me to select which drivers I wanted to install. As this help article mentioned, I selected, "Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M)." Afterward I installed Windows to my desired hard-drive/partition without any errors during installation!

NOTE: If you want to utilize SATA support, your virtual hard-drive must be connected to a virtual SATA adapter. To confirm your virtual hard-drive is connected to a virtual SATA adapter first select your operating system in VirtualBox, go to settings, then go to the Hard Disks section. In the "Attachments" section, make sure your hard-drive is connected to "Slot" SATA 0, SATA 1, SATA 2, or SATA 3. If these options are not available to you, you will have to select "Enable Additional Controller," then select SATA (AHCI). Afterward connect your virtual hard-drive to SATA slots 0, 1, 2, or 3.

Thank you so much to the Original Poster for making this help-article. It solved my SATA issues without any overhauling necessary.

Sticky Recommended, since this solves the issue with the previous XP + SATA article.


EDIT: Updated link to Intel Driver download page.

you said you used $OEM$/"TEXTAREA" was area a typo or does it also work with textarea as it does with TEXTMODE?

TEXTAREA worked just fine for me.

If you both followed the FAQ or Quickclic FAQ you would have easely found:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 7983#47983

vbox4me2 wrote:If you both followed the FAQ or Quickclic FAQ you would have easely found:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 7983#47983

not to be a dbag on my end, but following that link you will end up with an error the second time the xp setup tries to copy iastor.sys. (keep in mind i am talking about getting sata working during the xp install and not doing a driver swap after first doing an ide install)

I don't understand your problems. Okay, I have a windows host, but I'd think the process is the same, create new VM with empty VDI, mount the floppy image (F32.IMA) using the VBox GUI, mount the XP installation iso using VBox GUI, set the boot order, CD, HDD, Floppy and then start the newly created VM, the installation will start from the CD/DVD iso and when prompted, hit F6 and navigate to floppy and install SATA driver. I did it that way, as described in the HowTo and it worked as expected. There is no driver "swapping", rather a clean install. Am I missing something here?

What people fail to understand is while xp is busy installing it looses access to the floppy so the sata drivers remain only in memory and not in the drivers folder, stick to a simple solution, install with ide only (in a real sata pc with ide emulation) and once installed install the sata drivers, switch on sata (or disable ide emulation) and of you go. There is absolutely no difference in performance when it comes to this way or the more diffecult f6 way.