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No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 07:08
by compgeke
A serious bug is that you can only use IDE as a hard drive controller in Windows XP Pro SP3 setup. If you use SATA is will display a BSOD with error "0x0000007B", if you use SCSI setup says is cannot find any hard drives, and if you use SAS it says the same as SCSI, setup cannot find any hard drives.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 09:10
by stefan.becker
Before using SATA on existing image you must first install the driver.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 15:22
by Sasquatch
What stefan said, XP does NOT have the drivers for these controllers build in. You have to provide them.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 15:38
by stefan.becker
And there are more steps, self tested today.
First only add the sata adapter, boot with ide. Then install driver, reboot, shutdown, change image from ide to sata, reboot.
And in the tutorial section/windows guest there is an howto for installing a new xp with sata adapter. The howto includes a link to the driver.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 15:43
by Sasquatch
Exactly, that's also something you have to consider, don't use the latest driver from Intel, as it doesn't support the SATA controller VB provides and will BSOD with the 0x7B error.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 15:56
by achimha
Why do you want to use SATA with XP? If you really need more disks than what IDE can support (3), then use the BusLogic SCSI adapter which XP has drivers for. The SATA controller is not a practical choice for XP.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 16:34
by squall leonhart
The most common workaround is to install XP on the IDE channel and install the SATA drivers once completed. Then switch the disk from the IDE to SATA controller.
I don't think it would be wrong for someone to host a IMA file with the latest (or close to latest) sata drivers on it though.
I think intel's usage agreements would even allow such a IMA to be bundled in with vbox.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 17:25
by squall leonhart
achimha wrote:Why do you want to use SATA with XP? If you really need more disks than what IDE can support (3), then use the BusLogic SCSI adapter which XP has drivers for. The SATA controller is not a practical choice for XP.
Nice opinion you have there, as bogus as it is.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 20:01
by Sasquatch
It's not bogus, it's entirely valid. There is no practical use for SATA on XP because of the driver requirement. If you want more hard drives on it in VB, there are other options like SCSI. Of course, you're still free to use SATA on XP. I have all my VMs on the SATA controller.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 20:51
by Martin
And if you keep your XP boot disk on IDS nothing shoul keep you from adding additional disks to the SATA controller.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 22:02
by squall leonhart
Sasquatch wrote:It's not bogus, it's entirely valid. There is no practical use for SATA on XP because of the driver requirement. If you want more hard drives on it in VB, there are other options like SCSI. Of course, you're still free to use SATA on XP. I have all my VMs on the SATA controller.
Several older release notes, and threads have stated, that using SATA instead of emulating IDE provides better performance with reduced host overhead. This has been verified to be the case in my experience with XP guests on the SATA host controller.
As to the driver requirement... well if you don't know how to F6 a floppy, then you probably have no place using a virtual machine

Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 22:07
by Zrax
Alternately, you could use something like WAIK or nLite to add the drivers to your ISO before even mounting it... I've had good success with that process on physical XP systems in the past.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 12. Dec 2010, 23:00
by Sasquatch
I have nLite'd all my VMs to include the SATA driver. But we're drifting from the actual subject here. And this question shouldn't be in the beta section, because it's valid for all VB versions since the introduction of SATA. Therefore, I'm moving this one to "Windows Guests".
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 14. Dec 2010, 10:40
by squall leonhart
and just to let everyone know, the SATA driver included in the DriverPack repository (a third party host of drivers to slipstream into windows) doesn't work very well at all... its an 8.6 matrix driver and windows hangs when it passes the login screen.
Re: No Media Controllers Work With Windows XP Except IDE
Posted: 16. Dec 2010, 20:19
by Winipulator
I have a step by step guide on my blog on exactly how to enable SATA on an XP guest, link for exactly what you need to download, exact procedure, etc. It works for me every time, and the only comments I've had on my guide from others are positive. I can back up what squall leonhart says about SATA providing better performance and less overhead. I hope this helps you, or anyone else that may be having issues with moving beyond IDE with Xp guests. Good luck.
http://winipulator.blogspot.com/2010/11 ... r-for.html