Reinstalling XP

Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
(genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to the
SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows just
says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing something
simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).

Newshound wrote:
> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to the
> SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows just
> says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing something
> simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).
>
>

I would try asking in the correct NG if I were you.

John.

"Newshound" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to the
> SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows just
> says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing
> something simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).
>

sounds like the SATA drivers need loading/reloading...........

you will have to get the drivers loaded so that Windows loads them up.

If you have a floppy drive download the SATA drivers from the Dell site,
place them onto a floppy and run Windows install again..............don't
put floppy in drive yet, during loading watch the bottom of the screen until
requested to hit F6 put floppy in then hit F6..............this should
install the SATA drivers.

If you don't have a floppy...............I don't know the answer.

"Lez Pawl" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:8s-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Newshound" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
>> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
>> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
>> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
>> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to
>> the SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows
>> just says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing
>> something simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).
>>
>
> sounds like the SATA drivers need loading/reloading...........
>
> you will have to get the drivers loaded so that Windows loads them up.
>
> If you have a floppy drive download the SATA drivers from the Dell site,
> place them onto a floppy and run Windows install again..............don't
> put floppy in drive yet, during loading watch the bottom of the screen
> until requested to hit F6 put floppy in then hit F6..............this
> should install the SATA drivers.
>
> If you don't have a floppy...............I don't know the answer.

If MoBo supports one, you;ll need to temporarily hook one up.

If not, dunno! Flash stick?

There must be a simple way though

Tim..

"Me" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:GS3Bh.7789$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Newshound wrote:
>> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
>> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
>> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
>> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
>> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to
>> the SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows
>> just says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing
>> something simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).
>
> I would try asking in the correct NG if I were you.
>
> John.
Yes, thanks, and sorry, I spotted it just after posting! My brain is
thoroughly addled by it all.

"Tim.." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:qu2dnYS-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Lez Pawl" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:8s-(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>> "Newshound" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
>>> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
>>> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
>>> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
>>> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to
>>> the SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows
>>> just says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing
>>> something simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).
>>>
>>
>> sounds like the SATA drivers need loading/reloading...........
>>
>> you will have to get the drivers loaded so that Windows loads them up.
>>
>> If you have a floppy drive download the SATA drivers from the Dell site,
>> place them onto a floppy and run Windows install again..............don't
>> put floppy in drive yet, during loading watch the bottom of the screen
>> until requested to hit F6 put floppy in then hit F6..............this
>> should install the SATA drivers.
>>
>> If you don't have a floppy...............I don't know the answer.
>
> If MoBo supports one, you;ll need to temporarily hook one up.
>
> If not, dunno! Flash stick?
>
> There must be a simple way though
>
> Tim..
>
Got it going now though I had to unplug and replace the floppy connections
before it worked. It would be interesting to know if there is a way of
faking a floppy via USB. What else do you use a floppy for these days?

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:00:35 -0000, "Newshound"
<(E-Mail Removed)> mused:

>It would be interesting to know if there is a way of
>faking a floppy via USB. What else do you use a floppy for these days?
>
Floppy what?
--
Regards,
Stuart.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Newshound says...
> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to the
> SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows just
> says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing something
> simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).
>
Try pressing f6 and telling the installation where the SATA drivers
are.


--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........

Newshound wrote:
> Teenage boy has shagged his Dell (probably the usual story). Have tried
> reformatting his original 160 C drive and also creating a new active
> partition on a 300 which was originally data only (using Acronis Disk
> Director). Both drives show up fine in the BIOS. But when I boot from a
> (genuine) OEM XP disk and try to install on either drive (connected to the
> SATA 0 socket and correctly assigned in the BIOS of course) Windows just
> says "unable to find any installed hard drives". I must be missing
> something
> simple. Help! (and thanks in advance).

You need to get the right sata drivers, you get the option to install from
the startup... You might need a usb floppy drive, if the laptop doesnt have
one.

Gaz

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:00:35 -0000, "Newshound"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Got it going now though I had to unplug and replace the floppy connections
>before it worked. It would be interesting to know if there is a way of
>faking a floppy via USB. What else do you use a floppy for these days?

Windows XP will only load drivers for SATA/SCSI from the A: drive.

The actually reading is performed by calls to the BIOS floppy API
so you need to configure the BIOS so that the USB floppy appears
as A:. If you can't configure the BIOS like that then you're
stuffed and will need to temporarily install a legacy floppy drive.

Nick.