virtualbox.org

I tried the tutorial viewtopic.php?t=42829 but both methods fail. I can't attach a SATA controller and let the wizard do its thing because XP can no longer connect to the MS site for updates. Says "The wizard cannot find the necessary software" no DUH.

What do I do? I was never able to accomplish this even when XP had support let alone now.

Use IDE as it works and is the default for XP.

No, IDE has more virtualization overhead. People did tests.

Well the post you reference was all about the hard way to get it to work anyway. The easy way was to install with IDE and boot the guest, then install the intel drivers then add a sata controller and switch from IDE. Basically that is all you need.

But you must have the right drivers. ( there was mention of a maxtor driver, but I only ever used the Intel )

Frankly these days I would be more concerned with security of a non-supported OS than overhead if you intend to have Internet access.

I wish I would've known this easy way the first time. I found the answer for myself and it's here https://downloadcenter.intel.com/confir ... ldid=17882
I have no problem installing on IDE then installing SATA support after, though I wish I could just install on SATA as it would make installation faster. But for now this'll do.

The XP VM I'm using is only 4GB, I'm not really doing anything special on it that I'm concerned about security. It's a disposable VM that I test dangerous operations on.

The root of your problem is that XP has no native support for SATA. That obviously makes it tricky to install XP on a SATA drive. There is nothing that anyone can do about that (even Microsoft can't travel in time). You either live with the hassle of installing drivers, or you use IDE.

Physical PCs of the later XP era implemented an IDE/SATA translation feature on the motherboard, defaulted on so the OS never actually "sees" SATA. Obviously that solution isn't appropriate for VirtualBox because you can simply use IDE itself.

p.s. While I've heard it asserted several times that emulated SATA will give you better performance than emulated IDE, I've yet to see anyone post reliable numbers. I have in the past made my XP VMs talk SATA, but eventually stopped bothering about it - if there was a difference it was minor.

Wow no wonder I couldn't find this page that I came across 6 months ago in February when looking up "virtual IDE vs SATA" in Google, it's been taken off the web. Hate when that happens!
https://web.archive.org/web/20140310235 ... mance.html

This guy says the performance as well as disk I/O was improved under SATA, he posts results. Unfortunately his instructions failed for me.

The root of your problem is that XP has no native support for SATA. That obviously makes it tricky to install XP on a SATA drive. There is nothing that anyone can do about that (even Microsoft can't travel in time). You either live with the hassle of installing drivers, or you use IDE.

That would be fine if installing drivers actually WORKED which it doesn't with the floppy method. I followed all guides I could find, I downloaded the floppy F6 driver and it didn't work.

That would be an XP usability problem you should raise with Microsoft. I know that the floppy virtual hardware works.

Wait what? You're saying the driver works? If you have a link to a step-by-step guide that's better than the others I tried, I welcome it. Last I recall, I would load up the virtual floppy with the driver inside and install it like normal during XP setup which would seemingly work but then the XP booting screen would leech 100% CPU and never actually get past that.

No, I said that the virtual floppy emulation works in XP, because I used it quite recently - so the hardware fundamentals are available to XP and you to use for the purpose of installing drivers off a floppy. However XP usability considerations are beyond our remit here.

I'd also like to point out that "the driver" does not exist. There are probably well over 10 versions of the Intel ICH8M AHCI driver, and they definitely don't all behave the same.

See if you can find 10.1_f6flpy-x86.zip

The 10.1 release was the last release which supported the 8M. 10.8 and maybe even 11.2 should still support it but with the inf section missing the Ids it's Intel as usual which does not want to support their drivers for any hardware older than 2 years. Lan is the exception.

FRG