I have a user that zeroed out his hard drive and now is trying to reinstall XP. He has a Dell Dimension 8400 and it has a serial SATA hard drive. When trying to load xp, he presses the F6 key to load the drivers from the floppy he created and it shows the files being copied. He created the files on the floppy from the Resource CD and also tried downloading them from Dell's site. Now he's going to try the HD manufacturer website. However when he gets to the setting up Windows and presses enter, it says there is no hard drive detected. Anyone run into this before or have any suggestions? Thanks!
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Trouble loading XP onto SATA HD
- Thread starter smithe
- Start date
smithe
Yup been there, done that! and it has always been the wrong SATA driver used.
You could try physically looking at the controller chip for make/model etc and going directly to that chip manufacturers website.
ie Silicon image etc
Martin
We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
Yup been there, done that! and it has always been the wrong SATA driver used.
You could try physically looking at the controller chip for make/model etc and going directly to that chip manufacturers website.
ie Silicon image etc
Martin
We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
smithe
Does the XP install process actually say its loaded the driver files (2 part exercise - 1 - an entry appears on screen after you've put the floppy in, showing XP recognises that you've supplied something that looks lile a STA/RAID driver. 2 - it reads the files from the floppy (you can hear it doing this).
If this is happening, then agree with Martin - need to fins alternative driver. It can be very confusing working out what's required on the floppy from the motherboard CD (and to make matters worse, possibly, MS have moved the goalposts for longhorn/vista - currently at least).
Does the XP install process actually say its loaded the driver files (2 part exercise - 1 - an entry appears on screen after you've put the floppy in, showing XP recognises that you've supplied something that looks lile a STA/RAID driver. 2 - it reads the files from the floppy (you can hear it doing this).
If this is happening, then agree with Martin - need to fins alternative driver. It can be very confusing working out what's required on the floppy from the motherboard CD (and to make matters worse, possibly, MS have moved the goalposts for longhorn/vista - currently at least).
Another point that may help. MAke sure to leave the diskette in the drive until the first re-boot. It's been my experience that the install program goes back to the diskette with the drivers after it loads setup files into memory but before it begins writing to the HDD.
But of course, I've had my share of loading the wrong drivers, too!
Mike, The IT Guy.
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Life is too short to drink warm beer....
But of course, I've had my share of loading the wrong drivers, too!
Mike, The IT Guy.
Life is too short to drink warm beer....
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