MaximumPC 2004 10

OCTOBER 2004 MA XIMUMPC 69

Update Your Setup Files

STEP 2

Our next objective is to extract Service Pack

2 to a folder so we can update our existing

Windows setup files. Open the command

prompt by clicking Start, Run, and typing

cmd.exe. Use the change-directory com-

mand to navigate to the folder where you

just saved the SP2 executable in the pre-

vious step. (The syntax for change-direc-

tory is cd <path>, so if you saved the SP2

executable to, say, C:\Downloads, you

would type cd C:\Downloads to go there.)

Extract the SP2 files by typing xpSP2 –x,

where xpSP2 is the name of the SP2 exe-

cutable you downloaded. When prompted

for a destination to extract the files to, enter

C:\xpSP2.

Once the files have been extracted,

insert your Windows XP CD into an

optical drive and copy its entire contents

to a different folder on your hard drive.

To keep it simple, use C:\xpsetupcd as

the folder. Now, return to the command

prompt and type the following com-

mand: C:\xpSP2\i386\update\update

/s:C:\xpsetupcd. This will update your

existing Windows setup files with the

new code contained in Service Pack 2. A

message box will pop up to notify you

when the process is complete.

Service Pack 2’s built-in updater makes

it easy to patch your original Windows

setup files with Microsoft’s latest code.

Add Your RAID/SATA Drivers

STEP 3

We’re now ready to add RAID/SATA con-

troller drivers to our CD (if you don’t want

to do this, skip ahead to the final step).

Open the folder to which you copied your

Windows XP CD (C:\xpsetupcd) and create

a subfolder called $OEM$. Then, create a

subfolder of $OEM$ called $1 and a sub-

folder of $1 called drivers. The resulting

path should be C:\xpsetupcd\

$OEM$\$1\drivers. This is where

Windows Setup will look for drivers that

aren’t contained in its standard driver

library. For organizational purposes, make

a subfolder within drivers named for

the type of driver it will contain—for

instance, create a RAID folder for RAID

drivers or an SATA folder for Serial ATA

drivers. You can use any name, as long as

it has fewer than eight characters.

With the aforementioned folder

structure in place, copy the Windows XP

RAID/SATA drivers directly into the folder

you created above (we used C:\xpsetupcd\

$OEM$\$1\drivers\RAID). If your drivers

came in a self-extracting executable

rather than a zip file, you may be able to

extract its contents manually by opening

it in a program like WinRAR (available

at http://www.rarsoft.com ). (Alternately, you can

run the self-extracting executable, then

dig around in your system’s TEMP direc-

tory—usually C:/Documents and Settings/

YourUsername/LocalSettings/Temp until

you find the right directory). Finally, locate

the SYS file for your RAID/SATA controller

from among the files you just extracted;

it should be named after your specific

controller (e.g. fasttx2k.sys for a Promise

FastTrak TX2 RAID controller). The drivers

for different operating systems may be

split into distinct folders, so make sure

you find the SYS file that’s intended for

Windows XP. Once you find the SYS file,

copy it to the i386 folder of your Windows

CD (C:\xpsetupcd\i386).

Adding RAID or Serial ATA drivers to your

Windows CD will save you the trouble of

using a floppy disc to manually install

them every time you reformat.

Introduce Windows to Your Drivers

STEP 4

Somewhere in the depths of your RAID/SATA

controller’s INF file lurks the fabled PCI identi-

fier string.

Now that we’ve added our RAID/SATA

driver files to the mix, we need to tell

Windows Setup about the existence of

these drivers and how to use them. But

unless you happen to have this infor-

mation memorized—and if you do, this

might be a good time to turn off your

computer and spend some time in the

real world—you’ll need to look it up in

your driver’s INF file. This file is usually

found in the same place as the SYS file

you located in the previous step and will

probably have the same name, albeit

with an INF extension. Open the INF file

in Notepad and copy the PCI identifier

string, which is a series of characters

beginning with “PCI\VEN”—for instance,

PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_3376. There

may be other text on the same

line as the identifier string; if this

is the case, start at the first occur-

rence of PCI\VEN and copy the

text up to but not including the

first period (or the end of the line,

whichever comes first).

Next, open TXTSETUP.SIF

(situated in C:\xpsetupcd\i386)

and paste your PCI identifier

string under the [HardwareIds

Database] section of that file. At the end

of the string, add an equal-sign followed

by the driver name in quotes. In the case

of our Promise RAID controller, the

resulting line is: PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_

3376 = “fasttx2k”. Note: If your

driver’s INF file contains multiple PCI

identifier strings, copy all of them into

TXTSETUP.SIF. Now scroll down to the

Continued on page 70 Ë