Have computer technical problems? Get FREE help from Raymond.CC FORUM

286 Responses for "Install XP: Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"

1. Rudy January 21st, 2008 at 4:12 pm 1

   Or even better: You use Nlite (http://www.nliteos.com/) to add your needed drivers to your windows xp installation CD. For Windows Vista there is Vlite. (http://www.vlite.net/)

2. Raymond January 21st, 2008 at 4:25 pm 2

   Yeap, more advance users can use nlite or vlite. If you do a search on this site, you’ll find that I’ve already posted this two tools

3. Planet Malaysia January 21st, 2008 at 6:02 pm 3

   How about this: http://www.planetmy.com/blog/hp-compaq-presario-v3000-laptop/

4. Ed January 21st, 2008 at 9:35 pm 4

   No matter how you look at it, Microsoft sucks !

   SATA is out for many years now, and floppy drive are no longer on new machine several years now, and not everybody have external floppy drive (If it works for the install, I never tested)

5. Raymond January 21st, 2008 at 10:14 pm 5

   Planet Malaysia, yeah it’s the same thing.

   Ed, it is weird. A lot of computer now don’t have floppy drive and had to use an external one because of this. Once I had to disable RAID just because I couldn’t find an external floppy disk to load up the driver.

6. webcadre January 21st, 2008 at 10:28 pm 6

   hi ray tell us more about combining it with the windows xp cd installation, (the driver) it is a option for some people that dont have a floppy drive or external floppy drive,

7. Raymond January 21st, 2008 at 10:40 pm 7

   Good idea webcadre. Will do that.

8. david January 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 am 8

   Raymond I’ll respectfully disagree with you about the first method, I already installed XP on more then 1 PC and changing the sata mode didn’t help the only real solution is an F6 driver

   Thank You for everything

9. Raymond January 22nd, 2008 at 12:11 am 9

   david, it worked on my computer but there are also cases that it didn’t work for some people and I don’t know why.

   Anyway, it’s still a good way to try when you don’t have a floppy drive and also if you do not use RAID.

10. tullius January 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 am 10

    I didn’t know that an external USB floppy drive worked?
    Are you sure?

11. david January 22nd, 2008 at 12:48 am 11

    The reason why is, because Microsoft didn’t put in the the sata drivers in the XP installer, no?

    Tullius
    Yes USB floppy works perfectly BUT sometimes at a later stage in the installation XP will loose the driver for the floppy, then the only solution would be to slipstream the driver in the XP installer with nlite or something like that

12. Leo January 22nd, 2008 at 2:08 am 12

    One other reason to avoid the first option is that you loose performance using the IDE mode, if you have a Sata II (300mb) mobo and Hard Drive, the best option is using AHCI or RAID for full performance, I hope microsoft add this drivers on the WinXP with SP3 CD.

13. Rahul January 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm 13

    thanks a lot man….

14. Maliti Solochi jnr January 22nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm 14

    Please I’ve a problem with my Laptop it stopped recognising other external drives or flash drives but only does so to two of my old seagate external and suncruz flash drive. And am using Vista on a Toshiba Satellite L45-S7423. What is the solution please?

15. Planet Malaysia January 22nd, 2008 at 11:52 pm 15

    tullius, I’m very sure it’s worked with ext floppy drive as posted in my blog before.

16. CGpersia January 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 am 16

    if you haven’t floppy drive or have problem for installing that
    i have a solution … you can install sata driver after installing windows on ide…
    just after install go to
    device manager \ IDE ATA/ATAPI controller
    find your sata controller and right click on that and click Update Driver and select “don’t search i will choose the driver to install” after that click on have disk
    you need that driver of sata inside of floppy driver…
    you can download that from Internet
    and select that inf some like “iaahci.inf” or “iastor.inf”
    and install that…
    now restart your pc and go to bios and change your device mode from IDE to Sata AHCI
    enjoy Sata function
    note: this way not officially supported but any manufactures but work great
    if you have problem or doesn’t work
    you maybe select another device on Device manager \IDE atapi… \ sub list
    hope this way work for you
    i test this on my pc and after 1 year i haven’t any problem with that… i don’t have a floppy drive
    i have asus p5b-deluxe with JMicron controller on windows xp 64bit

17. webcadre January 23rd, 2008 at 12:45 am 17

    your always welcome ray,

    and we will wait for you to come up with that good idea of yours,

18. trial January 23rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm 18

    Dear CGpersia, ‘m little bit confused as to how shall we install when hdd is not found in the system during winxp setup?

19. CGpersia January 24th, 2008 at 12:11 am 19

    i said before…
    before install windows xp go to bios setup and set hdd to IDE
    after that windows xp setup found that device

20. Ralph January 25th, 2008 at 9:52 am 20

    Leo. . .
    Are u the owner of http://www.ask-leo.com
    I’m a big ask-leo fan!

21. marcial orcia January 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am 21

    no comments………..obseverer………it’s hard to installed if you the begginer electrician?.but no man is perpect……always put in your mine that,no man in island………….

22. tlipp January 26th, 2008 at 9:44 pm 22

    Thanks for the support solving this issue. One question remains. How to switch back to SATA native support after followed the hint with the Bios settings? Can I do this without a reinstallation of windows xp?
    Thanks.

23. bharat January 27th, 2008 at 12:45 pm 23

    hey hi ,
    i read the above procedure of yours ray
    i dont have a floppy drive and i have this nlite also wid me but the problem is my XP cd is wrte protected and the drivers cannot be integrated wid the setup
    can i copy the SATA drivers on to a USB drive and use it during installation ??
    i am stuck in the middle i need XP badly can u please help me out

    thanks

24. Leo January 31st, 2008 at 3:31 am 24

    bharat

    you don’t have to write back to the original XP installation disk… when you use nlite, it will create a new disk image for you, with the driver integrated, so you can burn a new installation CD.

    Some BIOS have an option to emulate an USB Flash drive into a Floppy disk, but the windows installation may not support that.

    The best option is nLite.

25. rstoplabe14 February 1st, 2008 at 11:29 am 25

    On a Compaq for one of my customers all i had to do was diable SATA mode on Bios. It Worked! Thanks

26. Daniel Carroll (Lightninghawk) February 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 am 26

    Side Note.

    If your xp installation isn’t recognizing the SATA drive with vista already installed.
    Go to the BIOS setting –> Sata –> change to ATA

    this was for a dell inspiron 1525.

    I don’t have the sata drivers. Never could find them.
    But this posting led me to where i needed to be.

    Thanks

27. sina February 2nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm 27

    THANKS guys,

    you saved my day!!!

28. GOGO LOT ENENE February 4th, 2008 at 7:12 pm 28

    please can u tell me how to load my laptop using window xp. my laptop has no floppy drive. thanks.waiting for ur reply lot

29. Trevor February 6th, 2008 at 5:42 pm 29

    Help! I have a Lenovo Laptop (3000 N200) where I flashed the BIOS with a wrong version. Now, the Laptop does not boot further than the bootup screen…if I try to reinstall winxp, it reaches the point until after formatting the hard drive…after that, “C” drive cannot be found (the usual strange message). How can I reinstall the BIOS available at Lenovo website, which cannot be run from DOS…is there some boot installer which could directly run thie bios file with a boot cd created for this?

30. Paul February 8th, 2008 at 5:30 am 30

    I am currently installling XP on a Dell Insprion 1525.

    Her eis some info for you

    In BIOS Setup (hit F12 at startup), change SATA mode from AHCI to ATA and the WINDOWS XP Pro Installation CD wil detect the SATA drive no problem (I have the Dell XP flavour of XP startup CD).

    You may also have to change the Boot order of the laptop in BIOS so that the CD/DVD drive is top of the Boot order (accessible under boot sequence) to get the laptop to show the “Press any Key to Boot from CD” option. By default the HDD is top of the order so the laptop will tend to boot straight to Vista otherwise.

31. James February 12th, 2008 at 10:41 pm 31

    Thanks for everyone\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’s help on this. I have an inspiron 1420 and changing the SATA settings from AHCI to ATA made it so that my xp pro cd would see the drive.

    Free at last…lord almighty I am free from Vista at last!

32. Jason February 13th, 2008 at 5:04 am 32

    Brand new Dell Inspirion Vista Home installed when bought and wanted to run XP Pro instead. Drive was not detectable but chnaged the drive settings (a little different from post) and it worked! You are the man. thanks!

33. Blade February 13th, 2008 at 5:16 pm 33

    Can anyone please tell me what drivers are essential so that all components work in Dell Inspirion 1525 under Win XP?
    Thanks

34. Cristina February 15th, 2008 at 2:03 am 34

    Thank you! It came very in handy!

35. Hank February 16th, 2008 at 7:48 am 35

    Cheers Ray,

    Needed this, couldn’t figure it out

    Gr
    Hank

36. fr33mumia February 16th, 2008 at 8:11 pm 36

    If you rapidly reinstall WINXP on the same machine, you could create pre-installed image using Ghost. Alternatively, you can create customizable WINXP CD with your SATA or RAID driver in it by using nLite for XP d-_-b

37. dingus February 20th, 2008 at 8:44 am 37

    Thank you very much!

    A big hurray from Norway!

38. Double 0 February 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm 38

    I have a Toshiba Satellite X205-S9800 laptop. It has a Phoenix Trusted Core BIOS and I do not see a way to change the SATA drive settings so that I can load XP on this Vista machine. I have removed the drive and attached it to another machine so that I could wipe and reformat the HD.

    Can someone help me get the BIOS to recognize the HD, please? I am desperately seeking a solution!!!!!

    Thx!

39. gorillainthemist February 25th, 2008 at 12:01 am 39

    excellent, wasted half the day trying to boot from a usb drive with different flavours of dos and windows to no avail to get around this issue, thinking I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’d just need to FDISK the disk…wish I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’d found this link yesterday…works a treat!

40. RealB February 25th, 2008 at 5:40 am 40

    dear
    I got the same problem
    I don’t have floppy dick
    what should i do ?
    I don’t have USB flash driver too
    help me thanks

41. Gavin February 27th, 2008 at 2:47 am 41

    i had a brand new Dell Inspirion with Vista Home installed, changed from AHCI to ATA in BIOS as mentioned, booted from cd and picked up hard drive …..cheers

42. xp on dell 8400 February 27th, 2008 at 7:16 pm 42

    just want to share my case with everyone. I have dell 8400. Tried to install xp as i was not able to start window. I first received the error,
    \”ftdisk.sys is corrupted\”. well, cleaned the CD fixed this.
    Once it loaded all files i received the error,
    \”did not find any hard disk drives…\” whish lead me to this site. I changed,
    1. [F2] BIO setting to boot from CD-ROM to be first
    2. changed SATA specification from AHCI(manf. default) to ATA — will change back after successful installation
    This did it. I\’m now installing new XP…. Thanks a lot for your help!

43. Ayodele February 28th, 2008 at 7:16 am 43

    hello i just got acer extensa 5220 and want to install windows xp on it and i got a message that their is no hard disk detected and i tried nlite but i am not to clear about how to use it to install windows xp and i cnt enter bios settings to change the SATA Mode to IDE in BIOS was unable to enter bios setup it was asking for password plz can anybody help me or put me thrue
    maxjohn98@yahoo

44. Swapnil February 28th, 2008 at 4:53 pm 44

    First method is to change the SATA Mode to IDE in BIOS. IT WORKED ON MY LAPTOP. THANKS.

45. Niq February 28th, 2008 at 9:30 pm 45

    Hi folks!

    I don\’t have a floppy-drive, and I can\’t disable SATA-mode in BIOS, I\’ll give nLite a go and hope for the best !!

46. Niq February 29th, 2008 at 12:48 am 46

    It worked with nLite! Only problem for me was to extract Floppy-files without a floppy-drive! I had come to make a virtual drive a:\ , extracted the files / drivers, and then inserted them into nLite and then burned the XP-installation onto a CD-ROM!

47. Chris Round March 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm 47

    brilliant – bought an acer aspire with Linux preinstalled – wiped to put xp on and will not detect!

    finally after hours of fdisking and 98 preinstall upgrade etc etc random crap this comes up and it works first time!

    thankyou so much

48. Another xp 8400m March 3rd, 2008 at 9:07 am 48

    Unbelievable, I went through and updated drivers for everything on my computer, I downloaded new disks, completely wiped harddrive set everything to 0s then installed totally new label and linux OS then tried XP and vista, but neither would boot. So finally called Dell and of course stayed on the phone with them until they decided it was just that my hard drive was completely broken and sent me a new hard drive. Too bad they didn’t know this would have saved them the money of shipping out new parts.

49. NODOUBT March 5th, 2008 at 5:27 am 49

    Awsewome page – question how did you get such a useful page so high in google – or is this truely a case of google being good – THNX FOR THE HELP

50. Planet Malaysia March 5th, 2008 at 11:23 pm 50

    Hope Windows XP SP3 will have all the SATA drivers.

51. arif March 6th, 2008 at 8:58 pm 51

    i have a sata hard disk and changing is disabled for this hard disk in bios.when i try to install xp,it cannot detect any hard disk.i attached usb hard disk and usb memory stick.still it cannot detect hard disk any thing to install xp.at one stage of installation it asks to install special drivers and try to search only floppy drive.

    i tried to buy floppy drive in pc world.they said it is out of date and they dont have any.

    is there any solution ?

52. azhar March 6th, 2008 at 9:53 pm 52

    thanks for your advices it was of great help
    many many thanks

    keep up the good job

53. Mec March 7th, 2008 at 3:49 am 53

    Thsnk you very much!!!!!!!!!!!

54. çetin March 7th, 2008 at 5:02 am 54

    plase
    norton internet securty 2008 request code=?
    help

55. Cary March 7th, 2008 at 9:35 am 55

    HP Pavillion dv6000 laptop running Vista – trying to install XP

    current bios does not give me option to disable SATA. tried USB floppy with Intel manufactures serial ata drivers found at
    http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=1666&DwnldID=7072

    but installation still failed “F3″
    What are my options now?
    am I using the correct Intel driver?
    thx
    cary

56. san March 7th, 2008 at 10:26 pm 56

    Raymond a big thanks,i was completely stuck,i just took the combination option in the bios for raid mode and hey it found the partitions!Cheers raymond

57. Cary March 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am 57

    Please help me find my SATA drivers. I’m using a Intel Core Duo CPU T2250. processor and using Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller. I am unable to find a match on this website.
    http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodpage2&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=170

    nor on Intel’s. I thought I had the correct drivers but the installation failed. Can someone guide me to how to find the correct drivers for my chip.
    Thanks
    Cary

58. Ramesh March 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pm 58

    Awesome ….
    Thanks a lot

59. Neon March 10th, 2008 at 10:22 pm 59

    Great stuff,
    This post saved the day

60. James March 13th, 2008 at 10:36 am 60

    I have a HP Pavilion dv2740se with AMD turion 64 x2 Mobile Technology, so the motherboard is made by AMD yeah? Are these the right drivers to download?
    http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_14098,00.html
    However, these appear to be updates, no mention of Sata Raid drivers. Can you even get Sata Raid drivers for turion 64?
    Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

61. James March 13th, 2008 at 12:42 pm 61

    Just found out motherboard, its
    Wistron 30D6 ver 81.49
    Where do I download the drivers, off their website? Any help will be great!

62. jerry March 15th, 2008 at 6:51 pm 62

    am also facing the same problem with cary, trying to install xp on hp pavilion dv 6700,i downloaded the SATA raid driver on link above i tried installing it but its telling me error code 32768 that file iaStor.sys could not be loaded, pls canm somebody help me out

63. Jake March 16th, 2008 at 7:53 am 63

    Thank you so much for your article! I really appreciate the time you put into it, because, being a moderate computer geek (not a nerd, mind you) I have the knowledge that I need…but unfortunately not much when it comes to BIOS.

    THANKS A MILLION! KUDOS! ))

64. eme March 16th, 2008 at 2:45 pm 64

    you are great.thanks a lot

65. whizzy March 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm 65

    as of wat i read somewhere on the internet,Windows XP black Edition is shipped with the RAID drivers inbuilt,any idea if my statement is rite raymond ? and i wanted to tell u.i m such a great fan of this blog amazing man ! my applauses to you.

66. Adrian March 18th, 2008 at 1:24 am 66

    Could you guys please help me with this one?
    Firstly thank you all for the previous reply comments, I managed to install XP 64 on my Dell Dimension 9100 by disabling the SATA with the intension of reactivating it later.
    Its now later! and I have a problem! I down loaded the latest chip set driver from Dell and installed it, I then down loaded the latest Serial ATA: Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver and tried to install it so I could switch back to SATA but when I try to install it I get this error message! Incompatible hardware. This software is not supported on this chipset. I have double checked both drivers are the right ones for my PC, OS and chipset and downloaded them again and same problem!
    I do get an error message from the Dell site just before download of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager but it still downloads.
    Any suggestions would be gratefully received.
    Thanks

67. Tom Marker March 18th, 2008 at 4:34 am 67

    I made a bootable CD with my SATA drivers and it boots all the way until it says no hard drives found… I have a RAID 1 configuration on SATA ports 4 & 5 and I cannot get by this problem… the other ports are not available..driver and a video card blocking them. Any suggestions?

68. Dan March 19th, 2008 at 10:09 pm 68

    Thank you so much disabling the SATA worked for me!

69. punit March 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pm 69

    i am having a ata hard disk for 20 gb..my cmos/bios shows that there is a hard disk attached ..but when i am trying to install or go to the coomand propmpt it says invalid drive specification…what do i do ? plz suggest me

70. Gordan March 26th, 2008 at 10:08 pm 70

    HEEEELPPPPP

    Please I need drivers for Toshiba X205-S9800

    Please send me info to e-mail..

    Thank you ALL

71. Martin March 27th, 2008 at 5:55 am 71

    HEEEELPPPPP ME

    Please I need drivers for HP 530 Notebook PC

    Please send me info to e-mail..

    Thank you ALL

72. viki March 27th, 2008 at 10:18 pm 72

    Thanks a lot,

73. saravanan March 28th, 2008 at 2:29 am 73

    this same problem my laptop,any os installation not support,setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer the error,plse clear the problem any ideas tell me urgent.

74. adriano April 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am 74

    I did like you said in the first method and I want to thankyou for saving my life!!!!

75. B.J. April 2nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm 75

    i have a 30 gigabyte hdd and when i turn comp on it says 4th master s.m.a.r.t. failure so i put my win xp in and then it says xp didnt detect hdd checked all cables and power cords twice over and still have same problem what can i do?

76. cip April 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm 76

    hi, i have a 1525 also -> but i have a question – if i change from AHCI to ATA the performance will stay the same ? or will i be able to change back to AHCI after windows is installed ?

77. shabeer April 7th, 2008 at 4:47 pm 77

    thanks a lot

78. Tommybhoy April 8th, 2008 at 6:55 pm 78

    Thanks for ths great tip. I have a DELL Inspiron 1525 and I was trying to get rid of Vista on the laptop and install XP.

    I followed the information above posted by Lightninghawk which involved going into the BIOS and changing the SATA settings:

    - Press F2 on startup to enter BIOS
    - arrow down to Onboard Devices and open
    - arrow down to SATA operation
    - change from AHCI to ATA
    - press Enter to Save and then Esc to Exit, Saving changes
    - I then rebooted with the Windows XP in the drive and it went through the install procedures no problem

    This was for a DELL inspiron 1525 and I did not require any SATA drivers.

    Slan,
    Tom

79. TechGuy April 9th, 2008 at 4:58 am 79

    For all who have flipped their systems into ATA compatibility mode in the BIOS. You have _severely_ degraded the performance of your disk. You need to either press F6 during installation and load the proper drivers from a floppy or build a new CD with the drivers already loaded. You DO NOT want to run your system in ATA mode.

80. Agent_DELIMAN April 11th, 2008 at 10:40 am 80

    Thanks alot Raymond , you got me back on track. Its nice to see that someone has the answers. After 2 weeks and new hard drives for no reason I found your post especially the one about moving it to a cd instead of the floppy. Thanks Again!!!!!!!!!!

81. Sajjad/Srilanka April 15th, 2008 at 2:22 pm 81

    Thanks a million Raymond I’m a new to SATA drives brought a new laptop and was trying for 2 hours to install XP. after reding your aritical I could install it, Great work Thanks again

82. Caleb April 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 am 82

    I have an ASUS A8V Deluxe MB and have been having this problem with my SATA HD.

    My MB came with a CD that comes with the necessary files to create the proper RAID boot disk, however my HD is still not recognized – even after the proper RAID drivers are loaded and your instructions are followed.

    Any other ideas?

83. Caleb April 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 am 83

    Can’t seem to edit original comment.

    As it turns out my MB comes with two optional BIOS – VIA and Fasttrack. I had been using the latter, but the VIA boot disk seems to work!

    HOoray!

84. DANNY April 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm 84

    dude this the shit

85. ahmed April 29th, 2008 at 2:11 am 85

    i donot know to thank you

86. Tracy Esau April 29th, 2008 at 5:42 pm 86

    the blog to me till now is not so clear

87. alessandro May 8th, 2008 at 10:04 pm 87

    io il messaggio \”Ftdisk.sys è danneggiato\” lo rilevo cercando di installare XP (sp3 integrato con nlite) su macchina virtuale con Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. sapete se è un problema della virtual o devo per forza masterizzarlo, provare e magari buttar via il cd? è abbastanza urgente, grazie!!!

88. querogz@gmail.com May 15th, 2008 at 11:34 am 88

    entao eu tenho um lap HP Pavilion dv2535la e nao tem o drive para o xp n site do fabricante 6s tem nossao de onde podemos achar essa parada

89. Ed May 22nd, 2008 at 11:03 pm 89

    Great information, thanks for you knowledge.

90. abnoysz May 25th, 2008 at 3:29 pm 90

    I used the nlite and still no success,
    what driver do i need?

    Compaq HP v3000 / v3618
    Help.. thanks

91. pakdi May 27th, 2008 at 9:03 am 91

    thanks. you rocks!

    finally, xp at dell inspiron 1420.

92. pin May 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm 92

    should i change back to sata after installed windows xp?

    what to do if i want to use sata?

93. aie May 30th, 2008 at 1:35 am 93

    i used toshiba satellite m200. Cannot detect harddisk when i try to format. i use nlite to modify xp cd but the result is same. can u help me …please

94. Jason May 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm 94

    I just got a brand new hp 520 laptop but with vista in chinese on it.. Trying to put xp on it but just cant.

    I tried changing The sata mode, but theres no way to do that in the BIOS!

    Tried searching SATA drivers online.. still no way..

    I just want to remove that vista and be able to run xp in and use my full RAM..

    Please help!

95. DominicanWarrior June 1st, 2008 at 11:04 am 95

    Thankyou for this info if it was not for this I allmost bought other hd.. ;0)

96. sync June 6th, 2008 at 5:34 am 96

    hi everyone..

    im not sure if i have a sata or ata devices..but when i check device manager it says..

    ATA channel 0
    ATA channel 1
    ATA channel 2
    INtel ICH8M Sata AHCI Controller – 2829
    Intel ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers – 2850

    now, if i have ATA device, what will i do to install xp. please guys im not good in this stuff. i would really appreciate any help from you..

    hope to have your answers soon…thanks

97. ?????? ????? – ???? 3 – IOPaneL June 6th, 2008 at 8:36 pm 97

    [...] ???? ????? ? BIOS ???? ?? ??????? ???? ???? IDE ?? SATA ? ???? ??? ??? ? RAID ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? BOTH __________________ – ?? ????? ????? [...]

98. sync June 7th, 2008 at 10:33 am 98

    never mind..

    i found the reason why…here’s how:

    i check the bios

    then go to advance, IDE configuration and change the SATA configuration mode from Enhanced to Compatible mode

    Compatible mode can will set serial ATA channel at IDE mode for OS not supporting Native SATA controller like WinXP and 2000 or it will turn into BSOD when installing windows.

99. Mark Kazak June 7th, 2008 at 12:34 pm 99

    I would really appreciate some help.A friend has a Dell Dimension 4400 that never had a HD and did not come with any driver disks (He bought it used). We got a refurbished 60GB HD and installed it and BIOS sees the HD. Unfortunately we get this problem when we try to install XP Home. Here is the information from Dell on the motherboard:
    6P708 ASSEMBLY…, CARD (CIRCUIT)…, PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD)…, DIM4400, NO AUDIO…, REV1
    but we have had no luck finding a driver. It has a floppy drive and we also have a USB floppy and I can’t find any options in BIOS to do the first method. We would really appreciate anyones help.
    Thanks

100. Sami-73 June 10th, 2008 at 4:58 am 100

     Salut.. je souffre du meme probleme J’ai pc portabel HP Pavilion DV 6850 EK avec Windows Vista installe et j’ai voulu cohabiter Vista a vec XP sur les deux partitions existantes mais voila l’installation de XP ne detecte pas les dique durs.. Les solutions proposees sont presque claires mais 1- je ne sais pas comment changer dans le BIOS la SATA en IDE car le BIOS existant n’offre pas de F12 et pour les F qui presente j’ai minucieusemnt verifier mais il n y ucune indication sur la SATA alors cul-de-sac 2- je n’ai pas de lecteur disquette externe est ce que je peux utiliser meloire flash USB? 3- pour les pilites de la carte mere j’ai beau chercher mais je n’ai rien trouve j’ai un carte mere QUANTA 30CC 79.29 s’il vous plait si vous avez une petite idee je vous serai tres reconnaissant.. Merci

101. Rosseloh – SDSU Residential Life June 11th, 2008 at 4:52 am 101

     Thanks much for this! We just got 5 new machines in for the department with Vista pre-installed (Gateway) and I was about pulling my hair out because the XP setup disc couldn’t find the drive. This saved me the trouble of messing with Warranty and just finding the same problem!

102. Joey June 17th, 2008 at 6:15 am 102

     Absolutely Brilliant! works!! thanks

103. asifali June 17th, 2008 at 4:32 pm 103

     Thank you thanks a lot

104. Xploit June 18th, 2008 at 12:58 pm 104

     Thanks, you saved me a lot of time and chewed finger nails.

105. Dave June 20th, 2008 at 11:52 pm 105

     I just wanted to say thanks. Your bios settings were slightly different then my own; but that\’s just the way it goes.

     Thanks again,

     Dave

106. Donal June 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 pm 106

     amazing, after wading through page after page, just gettin more n more confused, turns out to be as simple as 1 settin in BIOS. Thank You Very Much!

107. alberto June 24th, 2008 at 10:48 am 107

     hello, i have a vaio vgn-ar71j with preinstalled vista, now i do not see the settings in the bios like you say and i can not install xp pro, how can i do this?? need urgent help. thanks to all

108. DrJones June 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm 108

     Thank you so much! The simplest way to fix this is turning off the SATA option in your BIOS settings. Worked right away.
     Thanks again.

109. alberto June 24th, 2008 at 4:01 pm 109

     i do not have sata option in my bios settings. i spent looking inside vista for some security option, but my god at the moment i want xp pro, not vista. heeeelp

110. aamir June 25th, 2008 at 5:45 pm 110

     Hi:
     i have bought new laptop Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21M, i want to install windowsXP but when i started the setup it says that:
     Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program. Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3,

     tell me pls what is the solution, and i also dont have floppy drive, is there any possibility.

     aamir
     nicenicy@hotmail.com

111. Amon June 28th, 2008 at 1:25 am 111

     Sweet guys!!!
     Disabling the SATA options in the BIOS, solved the issue!

112. Stephanie June 28th, 2008 at 7:17 am 112

     I am not tech savvy….I do not know how to get to SATA settings on my computer, the steps listed do not tell me where to go once in the BIOS. I got this computer on ebay with no OS and do not have a box and do not know how to tell what manufacturer I have for the motherboard, please someone help me! The computer is a hp dv9260….

113. Pardeep June 28th, 2008 at 12:06 pm 113

     I\’m having same prob with my DELL Inspiron 1525.Thanks for the solution.

114. alitam June 29th, 2008 at 9:00 pm 114

     Thanks for all the help with my inspiron 1525… Thought I was screwed!

115. Demotis July 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 am 115

     To everyone out there turrning off SATA just to install the OS, STOP!!!!

     It’s like buying a car with turbo and then bypassing it. Why would you do that.

     I know it’s terrible that MS doesn’t have the drivers on the CD, but there are thousands of drivers and MS only supports a few of the more common ones out of the box, don’t blame them, blame teh hardware manufacturer for not agreing on a standard and creating a unified driver set.

     We can blame MS for the Floppy driver requirement, but there are ways around that. There are boot loaders that load the drivers in a virtual Floppy for this exact use, or you can slip stream the drivers on to the CD. It’s not really that hard.

     Another option is to get OEM media from the manufacturer of the system. They may have already sliped the drivers in for you.

     If you don’t know how slip stream, or to lazy to look on the internet to learn how, you shouldn’t be installing the OS in the first place. And if you think turning off SATA or RAID to IDE mode is the answer.. well I hope you like the speed your getting out of your system, it would be a little over twice as fast if you did it right.

116. Tunç Atakan July 10th, 2008 at 10:31 pm 116

     Thanx for you help.

117. frank July 12th, 2008 at 2:09 pm 117

     Mostly time I found blog but I naver gain lots of information but this blog have lots of important information abt this and I got lots of imformation on it . Thanks

118. Cat July 13th, 2008 at 1:20 am 118

     I just bought an Acer Extensa 5620-4020 2 months ago. Long story short it restarted itself in my carrying case and fried. I had an error saying the operating system was not found. After calling Acer support they mailed me sytem and recovery disks. After excitedly reading the instructions I went to work at downloading them. After the system disk finished loading everything and error message popped up saying no hdd available. if you push ok it restarts again. PLEASE help me! Acer support is closed for the weekend and I’m going insane!

119. Ste July 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pm 119

     Demotis – What garbage are you talking! Don\’t come on here bemoaning a work-a-round to install XP and not offer any help.

     If you know so much ,impart some knowledge and not your half baked opinions!

120. dvd July 24th, 2008 at 7:50 pm 120

     man you saved me. i had no idea what was going until i read your description. thanks

121. Ocky July 25th, 2008 at 4:43 am 121

     thank’s a lot…
     your description like cofee…
     make me power up again

122. BASSIX July 30th, 2008 at 3:55 pm 122

     Thank you!!!!

123. faisal August 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 pm 123

     ok…now the probs is in sata….so its simple.disable the sata native support in the bios settings and install the xp…thats all

124. happy guy August 10th, 2008 at 1:51 pm 124

     swithing to SATA to IDE worked perfectly. I\’ll just switch back to RAID after I\’ve installed XP.

     Demotis is a clown

125. jkchavda August 10th, 2008 at 5:28 pm 125

     hey man its working!! dude thanx!! thanx 2 all master mind of computer!! keep spreading knowledge. best wishes 4m me:)

126. edward August 12th, 2008 at 5:51 am 126

     YA INSTALE WINDOWS XP PERO AHORA LA PC MUESTRA LA PRIMERA PARTE DE WINDOWS Y LUEGO SE REINICIA DE UNA VEZ QUIEN ME PUEDE AYUDAR MI PC ES UNA DELL DIMENSION 9100

127. ardy August 16th, 2008 at 3:57 am 127

     thanks Ray, you\’re the best,you saved my job!

128. JacobRagsdale August 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm 128

     hi, i recently installed xp on my inspiron 1525 and had to change the sata mode so that xp would see the hard drive. can i install the drivers so that i can change it back to where i can have my 250 gb back?

129. Noreenog September 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am 129

     This is silly, go into BIOS – Config – Scroll to SATA – Change to Compatibility – Save and try again.
     Super Simple

130. qUERIDO September 14th, 2008 at 5:16 am 130

     POXA TO ATE EMOCIONADO SALVO MEU SABADO TE AMO FICA COM DEUS A VO TE MA

131. mohit bansal kalanwali sirsa September 20th, 2008 at 7:14 pm 131

     thanks yaar i just change bios setting from ahci to ata
     and it works now i can setup window xp
     without any change in original harddisk file(already coppied) setting

132. brandon September 24th, 2008 at 2:24 am 132

     setting the “Native SATA” option to “disable” in the CMOS worked for me….THANKS!

133. Pandiyan October 7th, 2008 at 1:46 am 133

     thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

134. Junior RJ October 11th, 2008 at 8:18 pm 134

     Fiz o procedimento so q usando um pen drive de 1gb ele recohese numa boa e mostra os drives do sata q ta dentro do pen so que depois tento aperta o s pra ele usar o drive e simplismente não vai, e + pra fente aparece o pen drive como opção de instalação e o sata continua não aparesendo, algem pode me ajudar???

135. Steve October 14th, 2008 at 7:45 am 135

     Wowza! Racked my brain for almost an hour trying to figure out why XP PRO couldn’t see my Hard Disk on my Persario C700 until I found this…

     I went into the BIOS and disabled SATA and it worked fine!

     Thanks guys

136. jose Armando October 20th, 2008 at 9:40 am 136

     Hola , Instale en mi portatil windows xp, tenia windows vista , por fin me libre baje los drivers y todo parece estar bien instalado solo que cuando tratao de regresar en el bios la configuracion a SATA, me marca error y no entra windows, como despues de haber instalado win xp restablesco el la funcionalidad SATA de antemano muchas grcias a quien me oriente o me diga donde, como consigo usar la funcianalidad SATA en mi equipo

137. Adrian Fedog October 20th, 2008 at 4:29 pm 137

     Thank you! Though I changed from IDE to RAID, and it worked. Thank you!

     Adrian

138. sanjay October 21st, 2008 at 5:10 pm 138

     I have sony laptop it comes with windows vista when i try to download win xp on it it shows a message setup did not find any hard disk in your computer. i down load sata dirve software on the net but still i am facing same problem.

139. madforit October 21st, 2008 at 7:41 pm 139

     I thought vista doesnt support xp,something to do with the drivers-not certain

140. inoh October 30th, 2008 at 6:52 pm 140

     cant find audio driver after disabling sata and installing xp.
     help me guys..thx

141. Steve K November 3rd, 2008 at 5:55 am 141

     Brilliant…suspected at the outset that XP was lacking some drivers…this guide helped a great deal..cheers

     Steve

142. romel November 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 am 142

     thanks for this…this helps a lot

143. simoncpu November 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm 143

     Bonjour,

     I’ve copied your SATA mode screenshot. I hope you don’t mind. Merci dude… =)

144. Dave November 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm 144

     hopefully this works, been totally crazy for the past few days…..well here goes nothing…..

145. CupChampz01 November 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm 145

     Hey Folks, just a little help in case you are trying to install XP Pro 64-bit on a Toshiba A305. The only difference is to change the sata controller mode from AHCI mode to Compatibility mode.

146. pankajkumar singh November 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm 146

     I am trying to install windows xp on DELL Inspiron 1525laptop. I have taken dos o/s, when I am going to install windows xp its not finding hard disk and always my system automatically restarting .I don’t know why it’s happening.

147. Tom November 25th, 2008 at 11:49 am 147

     I tried a lot of queries from Google – tried nLITE as many of you might have after getting this error. Saw that this might be a BIOS problem after reading this thread. Though I don’t have the same options as stated above, I simply went into my BIOS – where ever it said “BIOS – balh blah blah blah” + enabled – I simply disabled it. One only place where I could do it. Didn’t even know what it meant to do it, but it did work. Now XP can install. Simply disable/or enable – whatever your computer is set to in SATA – just do the opposite. It works!!!! I’m very drunk to. If I can do it right now – then you can too! DUH!!!!! I love vodka…..

148. pankaj kumar singh November 28th, 2008 at 2:19 pm 148

     I have installed xp on DELL Inspiron 1525laptop.but cd+dvd drive not working properly .can you people let me know the actual graphic driver for Inspiron 1525laptop.i need help for same if any have solution pls help me on that.

149. Brett November 29th, 2008 at 12:57 pm 149

     I have a question and this is driving me crazy! Please help. On your directions up top, it says to copy my sata/raid driver onto a floppy drive, Unfortunately, for me, My driver from Acer\\\\\\\’s website is 19MB. A floppy on holds 1.44. I tried spreading it out between 10 floppys, that didnt work. Im sooo stuck. I have the Acer Extensa 5620, downloaded the Intel AHCI Driver v7.0.0.1020 from this website: http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/AcerDrivers/Extensa%205620.pdf?CFID=2197550&CFTOKEN=79185469
     Any help woudl save my life. Thanks.

150. nabi from mongolia November 29th, 2008 at 8:54 pm 150

     thank’s frend. i do it

151. Myagaa December 4th, 2008 at 2:41 pm 151

     please can u tell me how to load my laptop using window xp. my laptop has no floppy drive. thanks.waiting for ur reply lot

152. vladcarama December 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm 152

     Tzeluiu noci mucelsea s problemoi, poka ne nashol atu statiu. Pomog pervai metod, sposibo avtoru…

153. George December 10th, 2008 at 7:08 am 153

     Hi Raymond,
     My laptop has Vista. I created a partition to install Windows XP, where I can run my engineering softwares (ie: CATIA) which are not supported by Vista.

     Should I follow your above steps eventhough I will be keeping Vista on my other drive?
     I need to run both operating systems.

     Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

     Thank you
     George

154. 44n5h December 12th, 2008 at 7:08 am 154

     ***The 1st time, I woluld like to say thanks for The owner of this Blog and i want to say Hello to All Peoples who join in this forum.
     I like this forum. \”For Give Me For My Bad Eglishs\” but I want to shares my experienced about :

     ** \”How to Reinstallation Windows-XP along with other Additional Programs if MORE THAN 10 Units of Desktop or Laptops with different hardwares in one day\”.

     ** All in One and One in All
     ** Without:
     # NO Problems With IDE or Serial-ATA.
     # NO Need Original Drivers.
     # NO CD-Rom Drive and CDs.
     # NO LOSING Of DATAS.
     # NO Bloue Screen.
     ** Support Using USB Cable\’s, IDE Cables, or S-ATA Cables.
     _______________________________________________________________________________________________

     ## Before You are starting this experince, you have to preparing a few the equipments :

     Requirement for Instaling Source :
     ———————————-

     For HardWares :
     ———-
     1. 1 Unit Desktop or Laptop
     Requitments:
     HardDisk Port : Sata/ IDE
     HardDisk Size : Min 2 Gb for Windows XP only or More Depend of your addition programs
     USB Port : Support 2.0 Speeds
     CD-Rom Drive : CD R/W or DVD R/W

     For SoftWares :
     ————–
     Only Need 4 SoftWares

     #### WARNING ####
     ———————

     *** Because of by activity which can yield Product of Ilegal hence I do not explain process work this at this forum.
     become to which wish knowing about it, Please.. request to send e-mail to my address. conveniently I will reciprocate it.
     My E-Mail is : aansh_1234@hotmail.com

     *** I will not be in control of mistake of usage, because me only sharing Science to be everybody in the world can enjoy using Technology.
     specially to People Moslem,disabled persons, impecunious Persons, war victim, and oppressed society by technology.
     and me only noticing \” Please .. Do not looking for money to find something but you have to looking for sciences and the money will be come by self.
     Like the waters falling down in to lower places\’s.

     _________________________________________________________________________________________________

     Please Do not Worry:
     * NO MOney
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     * NO Lie
     ** Only Say Thanks for My Masters, My Leader but NOT for ME.
     ** Link For downloads was included.

     ************* If you have any Problems about computer HardWare, Please…. Send E-Mail to me or Chatting with me in Windows Live Messenger (I am Online Every Times )me and I will reply as soon as posible.

     Thanks For All.
     Sciences Never Died…
     World Peace\’s Will Be Coming True……

155. Brett December 12th, 2008 at 11:51 am 155

     Thanks dude, raid setting worked like a charm!

156. Ogie December 14th, 2008 at 7:48 pm 156

     Bro, thank you very much you solved my problems..in Qatar all computer technician in qatar are selfish in a small information about basic trouble shooting of pc/laptop…thanks and more power!

157. Ravi December 20th, 2008 at 12:43 pm 157

     Thank you very much. its like a miracle for me as I tried so many things but didnt worked. But this tips helped me in re-solving the issue.

158. quy7 December 30th, 2008 at 6:17 am 158

     thanks all of u `cheers

159. Jonny H (UK) December 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm 159

     I have a Presario v6000 and was actually adivsed by HP support to reinstall a new version of XP as i got this message when I was trying to use the \\\’R\\\’ recovery console to recover my XP system.
     So I managed to get all my data off the drive using an external SATA enclosure then attempted to do a fresh install using the supplied XP Home edition cd they provide on purchase. I once again got the \\\’unable to find hard drive etc\\\’ !
     However using someone suggestion on here to change SATA Native Support to \\\’Disabled\\\’ from the BIOS
     (pf10 at powerup > System Configuration > SATA Native Support > enter and up cursor to change to Disabled > pf10 > enter for yes save )
     and the install proceeded to the \\\’accept rightsd etc\\\’ page

     XP came up ok – however i am now running with SATA disabled. I tried to reset the SATA setting in BIOS but everytime I try to start XP i get a BSOD.

     Now looking around to see how to get around this other than creating the new XP disc.

160. saalim January 1st, 2009 at 10:50 pm 160

     hi, im using toshiba u300 13u satellite im getting same problem and i don’t find any option in BIOS to change SATA to IDE please help me out

161. Ajay pandey January 5th, 2009 at 1:31 pm 161

     I have same issue with my compaq laptop and win XP .Only disaling SATA is worked for me .

162. tobylevel9 January 6th, 2009 at 9:41 am 162

     Hey, thanks for the help, just changing the SATA mode helped me so much!!!! Thanks for the help man.

163. tobylevel9 January 6th, 2009 at 9:43 am 163

     Thanks man! Just knowing that changing the SATA mode helps the startup helped me out a ton! Thanks again for a great article.

164. 200hit January 7th, 2009 at 10:18 am 164

     Thanks it worked!

165. Thomas Cameron January 9th, 2009 at 10:16 pm 165

     Thanks mate, worked a treat on a Lenovo X60! Changed the BIOS so that the SATA device was “compatible” instead of SATA.

166. akil January 10th, 2009 at 7:37 pm 166

     hai guys
     thanks for ur information about dell insperon 1525 . it realy helped me to do wind xp . just keep n ur sujestion ,

167. Chris January 18th, 2009 at 9:50 pm 167

     NLITE asks the driver file to be in .inf form. Though I found the SATA controller drivers on my system to be in .sys form.
     This is big problem as the new Win XP Install disk cannot thus be made.
     Any suggestions?
     Thanks,
     Chris.
     ===

168. kitty January 19th, 2009 at 8:19 am 168

     I have toshiba satelilite p305 with an ati mobility radeon driver. I read the forums but dont have an option in bios to change the settings. I dont have a floppy drive either but usb drives. Can someone walk me through the changes if they have the same laptop. Im fixing it for a friend and even though I do this all the time. This laptop is just different.

169. Visan January 22nd, 2009 at 7:50 pm 169

     i have a problem instaling a win xp on a hp pavilion DV 6700, it says no hard drive found on ur pc. the weird thing is that it doesnt have any raid or sata option to desable in bios( the bios is Phoenix , but dont think its a problem..) pls help me . mesage me on email…on how to solve this problem.

170. ace January 24th, 2009 at 4:10 pm 170

     Thanks a lot bro…it really works!!!

171. John Aaku January 28th, 2009 at 3:18 am 171

     Thanks very much. changing the BIOS settings did the trick…

172. floviano January 28th, 2009 at 12:49 pm 172

     hello, I have Hp workstation xw 8200, my hard disk is 73 GB SCSI, i dont know were to find my disket drivers for setup windos xp profesional. Pleas can some one help me . were to finde and what driver i need for extract in a floppy.

173. mohanarangam.p February 5th, 2009 at 6:58 pm 173

     I recently bought Toshiba 320 GB external USB Hard disk. but when it connect through USB to my laptop which has WIndows Xp Home Edition OS. It is not detecting. Please solve this problem.

174. Dastan February 8th, 2009 at 2:00 am 174

     Thanks very .. very much my friend.

     It really works for my HP 530 Laptop, and I think the HD model is Hitachi, so it works for anyone who has the same model…

     Regards

175. John February 10th, 2009 at 11:32 am 175

     Thank you!!! I have had this problem and always thought it was an issue with my motherboard or something else … you rock. This worked like a charm.

     I have a Dell Dimension 8400 – for those with Dell computers, go to SATA Operation in the drive list in the BIOS and choose “Combination”, which is a SATA/PATA combination and disables RAID. Works like a charm, installing XP Pro right now! Sweet!

176. Death Stryke February 11th, 2009 at 8:15 pm 176

     but how yo go to Integrated Peripherals and change the bios where where just in Integrated Peripherals but where it is please edit it and put more inforomation about this i really need it

177. grethel February 14th, 2009 at 3:13 am 177

     thanks a lot… the first solution works perfectly fine

178. claudio February 16th, 2009 at 4:16 am 178

     muchas gracias me sirbio demaciado tu informcion estoy en mi maquina con xp sin el maldito vista gracias

179. richardt February 18th, 2009 at 5:22 am 179

     Hi All

     Dont know whos who really , but i had same prob with not finding SATA , i disabled it in the bios and xp is on

     thankyou so much , if not for this site i would have no hair

     thanks where can i donate

     richard

180. Scott February 19th, 2009 at 6:51 pm 180

     Hi all
     just wondering if anyone can help me,
     Trying to get rid of horrid vista on a gateway ML6226b laptop, in the bios there is no option of changing the ACHI or IDE?
     and also have not got a floppy drive is there any other way of installing the drivers without or altering the ACHI before i do the install??
     Thanks
     Scott

181. rajesh patidar February 19th, 2009 at 8:35 pm 181

     satup did not find any harddisc

182. Harsha February 22nd, 2009 at 3:38 am 182

     Hey !!!

     Thanx a LOT …. i thought i killed my comp when i upgraded the Phoenix bios from F.11 to F.24 … This post helped me

     Thanx again !!

183. deon mark February 26th, 2009 at 2:27 am 183

     thanks your a life saver!

184. gogo February 26th, 2009 at 11:10 pm 184

     thanks for your help

185. miguel March 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 pm 185

     thanks, this really helped me!

186. ancianoman March 8th, 2009 at 11:00 pm 186

     Thank You…this really helped me out and am now able to install XP…this is a lesson well learned,thanks again.

187. sagar March 11th, 2009 at 6:22 pm 187

     

188. ABDULAZIZ March 16th, 2009 at 9:38 pm 188

     thinx man !!

     i will think you for all of my life !!

189. Phill March 27th, 2009 at 4:36 am 189

     I have accomplished the inevitable by installing the xp sp3 on a dell inspirion. Its super duper fast. Please message me to get some info on how to downgrade vista(any versions) to xp pro or home. I have played around with my computer to understand a bit about the Dell Inspirion 1525. Please let me know if you need any assistance. I have done this on my own with a few help of other posters on the net.

190. Scott March 29th, 2009 at 9:43 am 190

     Thank you very much… This was very helpful.

191. Rick April 6th, 2009 at 4:22 am 191

     Thank you Raymond. you rock!

192. Bill Campbell April 6th, 2009 at 6:32 am 192

     Hey, Thanks for your help. I always wondered what a third-party raid driver was. Anyway, I made the changes in BIOS and am installing XP on my son\\\’s laptop. Here\\\’s the senario: I safe booted Vista and lo and behold it\\\’s giving me a DOS window. (Iwas already suspicious) Like an idiot, I formatted C:. Great. Got the above message, can\\\’t find the hdd. Well damage done. I got KillDisk and really crapped it out. Same prob. until I found your article. A year ago, my step-son was going to throw this laptop away. (the one I\\\’m on now kids are dumd sh*ts, everything\\\’s disposable) It\\\’s a Dell and had XP on it. No prob. I formatted with XP and got drivers through my driveragent subsc. and got a brand new laptop. My son\\\’s is a presario. Good God!, I\\\’ve wiped and re-installed lots of drives and never had this headache before. Thanks again. – Bill

193. David April 7th, 2009 at 9:37 am 193

     First choice was the right choice for me, awsome was that simple and fast to fix this issue on my HP Pavilion dv2000 notebook

194. David April 7th, 2009 at 9:38 am 194

     i forgot to say thanks

195. Aamir shahzad April 7th, 2009 at 6:08 pm 195

     can any one solve my problem , when i install windows xp after i take first reboot after copying windows files it generates error of insert boot media. i tried it with 2-3 hard disks.

196. Aman April 10th, 2009 at 3:54 pm 196

     Its working.. good one .. Thanks

197. Foo April 12th, 2009 at 8:23 pm 197

     My BIOS (HP/Compaq nx6320) does not let me turn off SATA, but disabling “SATA native mode” was adequate to install Windows XP.

     Your info was invaluable in leading to this solution.

198. Nadav April 15th, 2009 at 4:06 am 198

     Thanks Ray.
     Changing the BIOS setting to “ATA” did the trick!

199. NewMacUser April 16th, 2009 at 6:48 am 199

     THANK YOU for this Guide!!!! Now, I’m able to skip that irritating part! Thanks… I’m installing Win XP Prof now on my PC.

200. Ben Shotter April 18th, 2009 at 5:10 pm 200

     Thankyou so much! Finally a site with the correct info! Prob sorted. Thanks again.

201. B.K. DUBEY April 26th, 2009 at 6:12 pm 201

     thanks alot ! Great work.

202. Mohammed April 29th, 2009 at 1:21 am 202

     Thank u so much !!

     I have IBM lenovo thinkpad . I changed the SATA mode from ACHI to Compatibilty and it worked successfuly.

203. SandRo May 4th, 2009 at 12:17 am 203

     thank you, you are my brother

204. ANDY May 4th, 2009 at 6:48 am 204

     Muchas gracias, mi disco es SATA y no podia instalar XP porque no reconocia el disco, la solucion como lo indican fue cambiar la configuracion en BIOS a SATA-IDE.

205. erik May 19th, 2009 at 2:11 am 205

     YOU ARE MY HERO!

206. Harold May 19th, 2009 at 7:07 pm 206

     Very helpful article.
     Thanks for your help.

207. DW May 27th, 2009 at 4:07 am 207

     Method 1 worked like a charm…thx!

208. rajwinder singh May 30th, 2009 at 8:44 am 208

     oh man….thanx a lot …u saved my money and time both…..u changed my life with ths method…i m very thankfull 2 u for this act……

209. Azgalan June 4th, 2009 at 12:52 pm 209

     Where can i download the SATA Driver for my laptop? Model: BenQ JoyBook R45. I can’t find it anywhere.

210. fudzis7 June 5th, 2009 at 3:58 am 210

     “First method is to change the SATA Mode to IDE in BIOS. My computer BIOS is Phoenix AwardBIOS 6.00PG and I can change the SATA Mode to IDE by going to Integrated Peripherals > SATA Devices Configuration > SATA Mode [RAID] and change to [IDE].”

     THANK YOU

211. Matt June 6th, 2009 at 5:49 pm 211

     Hello All,

     I am not sure at all which controller to choose when in the f6 floppy stage?? there is a list of different controllers but i have no idea which is for me??

     please email me a possibility

212. Prince FsL HmD June 9th, 2009 at 3:04 am 212

     Turning off Native SATA option in HP NX7400 worked for me perfectly

213. petey June 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pm 213

     Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

     Disabling the SATA setting in BIOS worked a treat. All this to get rid of Vista (rot in hell) and install XP and Ubuntu (which installed without all this Microsoft malarky).

     Thanks again.

214. Midna June 20th, 2009 at 11:36 am 214

     I got my laptop in February 2008 and it came with Vista. I had downloaded nLite and made a copy of the OS but included the extra drivers and stuff so it would install. Last night I got a new HDD and in XP, I’m using nlite again and seem to add all the drivers but get the same screen that I got before caused by the raid thingie. My BIOS is Phoenix TrustedCore and theres no way to disable RAID. How do I know which driver to download and where do I get it! I have literally been trying to install Windows XP on my new HDD for about 24 hours. I bought it last night at FutureShop. There’s no OS on it.

215. Parag July 12th, 2009 at 12:59 pm 215

     Thanks Raymond, this was a “Life saver”.

     Was trying to install a copy of Win MCE 2005, and disk would fail to detect HDD, changing to IDE worked.

     Thanks again !!

216. Simon de Almeida July 20th, 2009 at 6:31 am 216

     OMG MAN. You saved my ass. I have an acer Aspire 6920G laptop and I was on vista. I had problems with the internet connection. I couldnt find any wireless internet signal. I also couldnt open any usb or burn disk’s. So I poped it my windows xp cd and when it said. Press “r” to begin installing Windows xp. Nothing happened. I pressed R and still nothing. So I took my cd out and restared my laptop. It would boot to windows Vista. I was so scared because he laptop is not even mine ( well is my brothers). Thnx to this now I can install Windows again! Im installing it right now.

217. tolana July 31st, 2009 at 6:55 am 217

     So glad I found your site! I ended up trying what one comment said, changing the HD in the bios, turning off the RAID thing which it turns out was replying on SP1. Now I’m installing XP Pro on a fresh hard drive. Woohoo!

218. alanaz7984 August 10th, 2009 at 5:19 pm 218

     thanks dude!! i can install win xp in my sata hard disk acer aspire 4315.. just changing achi to ide from bios …thank so much.

219. Raj August 12th, 2009 at 1:58 pm 219

     Hey thanks it worked for me on my VAIO…………cheers

220. Jonathan Canales August 19th, 2009 at 12:18 am 220

     Hey man… thank you very much…. i disable the sata mode and the problem was resolved…..

221. Thor Young August 21st, 2009 at 8:15 pm 221

     Thank you very much for this information. I encountered this issue on my IBM Thinkpad R60 after I had installed a copy of Vista Home and wanted to step back to XP Pro. This was an instant fix but for clarification on my system you need to choose to put the (SATA) Controller into Compatibility Mode as there is no (IDE) mode option in the BIOS. I would strongly suggest everyone try this setting solution first. You can certainly use nLite or vLite to create an ISO disc but that takes 30min just to get going and this was done in less than 5.

222. Jose Rodriguez August 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm 222

     Any word on this with this model of computer????

     I’ll try some of the steps but if you have the solucion for this specific model please let me know…

223. omicron August 30th, 2009 at 6:52 am 223

     I had the same problem on a T60. After attempting to install iDeneb 1.4, ran into problems reinstalling xp pro. hdd wasn’t recognised – “Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer”. I had to set to compatibility mode under the hdd settings in the bios. worked fine after that.

224. Chazara September 6th, 2009 at 6:20 pm 224

     That was perfect, very helpfull, short, specific guide. I was just installing Win XP SP3 onto my mums Linux PC (I installed Linux on it because she seems prone to downloading a lot of viruses unknowingly, so Linux was my solution ). Installation couldn’t find a Hard Disk, very simple answer.

     Thank you very much Raymond, I owe you one

225. Chazara September 6th, 2009 at 6:20 pm 225

     “with” SP3, whoops

226. Shahir September 7th, 2009 at 5:30 am 226

     THANKS A LOT FOR EVERYTHING. Just a simple step of disabling my SATA drive in BIOS on a COMPAQ V3000 NOTEBOOK detected the HD… And thanks for the Blogs..Cheers

227. K.Narender Goud September 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm 227

     ) I’m currently using another laptop, and I want to reformat my main laptop.

     It is a Sony VGN-FJ57GP.

     Anyway, when I insert the Windows XP disk into the drive, it says to ‘Press any key to boot from CD..’ but it doesn’t work. I’ve pressed every key available to press but nothing happens. What should I do?

     UPDATE: Now it is loading if I don’t press any key, so it means my keyboard is working and it hangs at ‘Press any key to boot from CD’. Someone please help.

228. Andy September 9th, 2009 at 7:01 pm 228

     I am or was running xp on a Hp compaq NX6310, I had a problem so backed up my drives as it recommends when opting to press f11 to restore to fact settings. Problem is when I re-booted NTLD error I tried to install Xp again only to get the set up did not find any hard drives installed!

     I tried doing what was suggested here only to be prompted for a password which I’m unsuccessful with plus it doesn’t allow me to type any password regardless of me not knowing it. Can anyone help please? Thank you

229. Andrew September 10th, 2009 at 12:01 am 229

     Just a question:

     Will the HDD run slower now that it’s set from RAID to IDE?
     Considering it’s a SATA drive?

230. ray September 12th, 2009 at 7:22 am 230

     100000000000000000000000000000000000000 kiss and thanks for you.

231. Nathan September 13th, 2009 at 7:31 am 231

     Thanks so much Raymond after trying to install Windows xp on my Acer 6920g Numerous times and it not detecting the hard drive i searched the internet for help and found this article keep up the good work!

232. ray September 13th, 2009 at 7:18 pm 232

     WOW!

     i JUST FOLLOWED YOUR ADVICE TO FIX THE bios BECAUSE MY BROKEN LAPTOP WAS NOT READING THE HARD DRIVE- AND HEY PRESTO! IT WORKS AGAIN AND HAS NOW LOADED WINDOWS XP!

     yOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT A CAREER IN THIS STUFF COS YOU HAVE A TALENT FOR EXPLAINING CLEARLY TO US TECHNOPHOBES!

     tHANKS AGAIN, MAN!

233. timmmy October 7th, 2009 at 9:40 am 233

     i have a compaq nc6400; took the first suggestion and disabled sata in bios – worked just fine – nothing like the path of least resistance…

234. Brian MacNeil October 15th, 2009 at 12:05 pm 234

     To all those that have had the same error I encountered about WinXP Setup not finding the hard drive on a Sony Vaio VGN-NR385E laptop:

     1 – This was the site I used to power thru that issue!!!
     2 – Thanks to all those who left useful comments for the rest of us to use Nlite!!!!
     3 – Using Nlite allowed me to specify the correct SATA driver support I needed to FINALLY get XP to install on this machine!!!!
     4 – If there is anyone out there who ran into or is still struggling to get XP installed on a Sony Vaio VGN-NR385E laptop……..Use Nlite!!!!!!!!
     5 – If you can’t figure it out email me direct @ brian.macneil@gmail.com and I will gladly help you and post any pertinent info to this site (as this site was the resource I needed to power thru my issue as well)
     6 – Thanks to all for helping get this issue resolved for me!!!

     Cheers,
     Brian MacNeil
     Brian MacNeil

235. Giorilio October 15th, 2009 at 11:50 pm 235

     i have Sony Vaio VGN-FZ21M. i tried to install windows XP but had no luck. i read all posts and i also tried to use nlite but had no luck. I cant either disable SATA from bios cause there is no such option(or at least i cant find it).

     Plz help me if u may.

     Thank u all in advance.

236. newbietek October 20th, 2009 at 12:41 pm 236

     Hi raymond,

     can you help with this problem, i’m cucrrently setting up an acer travelmate 6291, i upgraded to 250GB HDD.
     i’m installang windowsXp when this problem occur.
     i tried to google the raid sata driver for this laptop but i haven’t found any even in acer website there is no such driver.

     please send advice, my job is at stake.

     Thank you n advance.

237. eric October 26th, 2009 at 1:42 pm 237

     disableing sata support in the bios helped. Thanks a million I was dealing with this issue for hours.

238. Eric October 30th, 2009 at 10:59 am 238

     Thanks for the quick tutorial on this. I was scared my system was all messed up.

239. rediet November 5th, 2009 at 4:07 pm 239

     i really dont get dis kind of prblem b4 here is my BIOS configuration .
     Boot Sequence
     1.onboard usb or usb Floppy drive.
     2.onboard SATA Hard drive not presenet.
     3.onboard or USB CD ROM drive
     SATA Operation
     RAID Autodetect/AHCI
     and my pc is DELL Optplex 755 & it has 4 SATA DRIVES but only one(SATA 1) is working
     pls,pls help me how to fix it

240. ALFREDO November 10th, 2009 at 2:10 pm 240

     GRACIAS POR AVER RESUELTO MI PROBLEMA SOLO DESHABILITE EL SATA Y PUDE REFORMATEAR MI COMPUTADORA XP PRACIAS POR AYUDARME

241. Vinodh November 16th, 2009 at 12:16 pm 241

     Hi Raymond,

     I was struggling for two days to fix this issue.. finally changing the drive mode in bios worked.. THANKS A MILLION…. and KEEP UP UR GOOD WORK…

     Cheers Mate…

242. jackob November 19th, 2009 at 5:06 am 242

     Hi

     Thanksssssssssssss
     Thanksssssssssssssss

     100000000000000000000000000000000000000 kiss and thanks for you

243. Yash November 20th, 2009 at 2:58 pm 243

     solved my problem dude.. thanks a ton

244. armando November 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm 244

     wow it helped me,love u man!!!!

245. Srinivas November 24th, 2009 at 8:03 am 245

     Thank you man!! it worked for me!! Great help !!

     Regards,
     Srinivas

246. abiku November 28th, 2009 at 11:33 am 246

     thanks it works

247. Cinos December 1st, 2009 at 1:30 pm 247

     Hi,

     I have the same problem, Iam trying to install XP from my laptop curretly installed Vista on it. My laptop is HP Pavillion 6700, upon Installing XP I always receive this error

     Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program. Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.

     I have no floopy on my loptop. pls help me resolve this problem I need to change my OS to XP badly.

     thank you

248. ali December 5th, 2009 at 1:29 pm 248

     hi my dear!
     how are your?
     i have hp pavilion dv5-1002nr nootbook!
     but like install windows xp!
     but no find drive sata !!!!!!!!!!!
     please help me very soon.
     thanks for help

249. used computers December 9th, 2009 at 4:10 pm 249

     its like a miracle for me as I tried so many things but didnt worked. But this tips helped me in re-solving the issue.

250. thugzine December 14th, 2009 at 12:52 pm 250

     hi thanks for the big big big help. =) it works.. btw. i have a aspire5310.

251. Hardus December 19th, 2009 at 6:12 pm 251

     Thanks A million – first page I opened and solution worked….

     Great man!

252. Mike December 20th, 2009 at 6:56 am 252

     I am reloading XP on a neighbors laptop that crashed, SP3. Disabling SATA in Bios worked for an old HP C700. Thanks!

253. Adam December 25th, 2009 at 11:54 pm 253

     I needed help with getting my laptop to show my HDD during installation. I found it right at the top, and it was nice to find what I needed to know so fast and easily.

     Thanks.

254. teacherdan December 28th, 2009 at 7:16 am 254

     I was having trouble with XP setup not recognizing my SATA drive. Your first tip did the trick! Thank you very much.

255. Terence December 30th, 2009 at 3:09 pm 255

     The same error message is being displayed when l try to load XP on my acer laptop TravelMate 250. It was working perfectly, then suddenly it started displaying an error message ‘no operating system found’, when l power it on. How do l go about it on my laptop.

256. Terence December 30th, 2009 at 3:41 pm 256

     l got it. it was a loose connection of the Hard Disk. Did not even have to reload XP.

257. Spanki December 30th, 2009 at 4:31 pm 257

     Excellent post mate…I installed windows 7 which includes sata drivers and everything is working perfect..thanks

258. Cyph January 20th, 2010 at 4:54 am 258

     Thanks http://www.raymond.cc!

     This solved my NO HARD DISK DRIVE INSTALLED error after running Active Killdisk.

     Problem solved– thank you for this fix– And THANK YOU Google for sending me here! lol

259. John January 22nd, 2010 at 11:36 am 259

     Im having the same problem here as you see on the top blue screen. when i try to install windows xp i get that error. i tried to go into the bios i cannot make any changes where the Hard Disks are for some odd reason. I dont have a floppy drive so im kinda stuck here.. any ideas on how to fix this? I was thinking about making a boot disk to fix the hard drive error but im wanting to format the C drive and start fresh. Any ideas?

     Thanks,
     John

260. devaraj B.lore January 22nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm 260

     installing winxp not decting hdd, In bios shows harddisk
     what was the problem please send full detail for me pls

261. dvdmike January 23rd, 2010 at 6:05 am 261

     help working on gateway laptop m-256m i want to install new os when in get ready to format it it say NO HDD FOUND so i dont have a floppy for the raid drivers so what do i do how can i get the drivers so i can install windows again help help

     mike

262. Babak January 24th, 2010 at 5:54 am 262

     well done dude!

263. Babak January 24th, 2010 at 5:56 am 263

     I have been looking for the solution since 6 months ago and now………………..
     Thanks man great job

264. Haami January 27th, 2010 at 5:09 am 264

     Thanks for helping me troubleshoot problem. You da man bro.

265. Dave January 28th, 2010 at 12:18 am 265

     Dude, U Rock!!!

266. Steven Chandler January 28th, 2010 at 7:20 am 266

     Reinstalling on an old Compaq, this post was spot on. Changed the sata option and it detected the drive ASAP. Great stuff.

267. Kiriyama January 31st, 2010 at 12:54 am 267

     Thanks op, changed the SATA to compatability mode and it worked like a charm.

268. Anthony Dickinson February 1st, 2010 at 6:22 am 268

     That worked perfect. Thanks

269. Best February 3rd, 2010 at 3:01 pm 269

     Thanks all
     this help
     i have inspiron 1525 , i have vista , now it’s xp my love .
     need drivers
     10x again

270. Andy February 3rd, 2010 at 6:59 pm 270

     I did not know that little changes can cause such big problems. I was on the verge of taking my laptop in for $100 to repair this error. Thanks to you I can install an OS in my laptop again.

271. Rick Trejo February 9th, 2010 at 6:00 am 271

     How can I use nlite on my machine when it won’t boot up?

272. JT February 12th, 2010 at 6:44 am 272

     Hey, i downgraded to xp on my acer 5100 laptop that had vista on Toshiba MK1234GSX hard drive.strangely it didnt require me to install sata drivers nor did i had to go in bios to change bios seeting and also not getting a warning that the hd couldn’t be detected duing xp’s installation.

     The installation went smooth.

     This is wierd, can someone explain or have i been lucky…because i’m sure i would’nt know what to do because i didnot know that xp requires sata drivers to be installed lol

273. JT February 12th, 2010 at 6:45 am 273

     srry for typos lol

274. simon February 13th, 2010 at 3:20 pm 274

     my laptop is facing the same problem
     but i dun have a floppy drive
     can i use a usb???
     in usb i will save the setup of drivers
     and then i will press f6 and so on

275. Tony February 21st, 2010 at 7:31 pm 275

     Thanks after reading this sorted out install XP on my Laptop. I don’t have a floppy on the at laptop so just turn off the sata setting in my bios and now XP is installing.

276. devashish uniyal February 22nd, 2010 at 2:13 am 276

     hello Mr Ramond…
     u don’t know how much your article has helped me…… thanks a ton….. really
     i love u…..

277. Qwerty February 26th, 2010 at 12:05 am 277

     i just bought a new compaq laptop and there is no bios option for ide mode or compatability mode any sugestions

278. Rich February 26th, 2010 at 10:39 am 278

     tnx for the info.

     found this thread after googling.

     i’m working on a friend’s Dell XPS400 who’s having h/w errors so i tried a different sata in his computer as a test and was receiving that info.

     adjusted that RAID setting in the BIOS and is now installing perfectly.

     tnx again for the help.

279. Jojo February 26th, 2010 at 4:16 pm 279

     Thank you all for your suggestions.
     I was using pavilion dv5000 with a Win XP version preventing usage of any legacy OS. Disabling SATA (in BIOS) did indeed allow me to format my drives the way I wanted to!!
     Cheers.
     Jojo

280. syed musthafa February 26th, 2010 at 8:03 pm 280

     its good sir but need external floppy drive…. loptop we can add floppy drive not good …. have sata raid driver in usb flash driver and extract possible…..

     please arrange solution in usb raid boot

281. syed musthafa February 26th, 2010 at 8:08 pm 281

     dear raymond please arrange as soon as possible and usb raid driver…. floppy not good ……

     please please please send me a olution of usb raid driver…

     by raymond fans

     syed musthafa

282. parvez February 27th, 2010 at 2:59 am 282

     Ok
     I was a using my ide 2.5 inc external Toshiba 80 Gb Hdd and was working till i reinstalled my os, Xp is not able to dectect the hard drive , like after a minute or so the hard will not get dectected, when i check the device manager it gives a Bang for Mass storage device,
     also once it got dectected and then asked me to format the drive and hence i formatted the drive and lost all the data and still the issue is the same
     where can i get the mass storage drivers for the hard drive, also the same works fine on my latop

283. Jay shah March 7th, 2010 at 5:57 pm 283

     i am having hp presario c700 n not able to boot xp cd and last i am getting that no hardisk found..then what to do…??

284. khaled March 7th, 2010 at 6:45 pm 284

     mannnnnnnnnnn woooowww changing tha SATA MOOD works work works:D:D thank u:D

285. foxfxx March 14th, 2010 at 1:58 am 285

     thanks man !!! you saved my day!!

286. sammy March 14th, 2010 at 9:11 am 286

     Hi, same problem – no hard disk detected during Xp instatllation>
     in bios mode, i can see only 2 options,
     1. AHCI
     2. COMPATIBILITY
     there is no option for ATA mode
     help !!!!