Hard Disk Not detected during Windows Install

I am trying to re-install Window's XP home on my computer. I have succesfully done this before on another, however this time I keep getting the error that I have no Hard Disk installed in the computer?

I changed the boot selection to cd-rom first then hard disk second....it SHOULD recognise it.

I also tried using the CD that came with the drive in the first place, but it does not help...

Anyone?

 

be sure the connections are tight on the board and the drive , and is your drive showing up in the bios ? if not then you may need to buy a new drive or remove the drive and slave it to another machine and run chkdisk or whichever tool you use , this will let you know whether your wasteing your time or not .

 

Hi there, just a few questions and suggestions.

You say you are re-installing windows xp, was it working ok and you are just starting from fresh or trying to upgrade from win98 perhaps? were there any other disc errors before this re-install?

You have changed the boot sequence to cd-rom, are you booting from a restore disk or an original winxp disc? and does the sytem boot with that cd?

At what point does it detect there is no hard drive?

does the hard drive show up in the P.O.S.T screen or in the bios?

as tbiggs asks, have you tried all the connections to make sure nothing has worked itself loose and that the disc actually spins up when the power is turned on? Maybe trying the disc as a slave in another system will determine if the drive is in fact faulty.

How old is the pc? is the hard disc a SATA disk that may require a 3rd party driver (as asked for during windows set up) so that windows can complete installation?

I hope these Q & A's will help you or us to sort out this problem ASAP.

 

The drive IS SATA and I am currently running it perfectly fine. I can access it when window's is up and running. I am just trying to re-install window's from a WinXP disc to start a fresh, before that it was working fine. I just want to wipe my drive and start all over again. Get rid of the junk, make the computer run a little faster.

I do have a cd that came with the drive. I tried running it when I was in window's and also at start-up, but doesn't help.

Can I format the drive from window's somehow and start over?

The window's install, goes through it's check's/loading and at the point of "do you want to install windows?", "do you want to repair windows?", I hit enter to re-sintall and it says there is no hard drive then.

The connection's should be fine as there has been no previous Hard drive problem's.

Window's doesn't ask me for an 3rd party disc's either.

As far as I know the hard drive show's up at all other time's also.

I hope i've answered the question's you guy's need to help me out.

Thanks!

 

have you flashed the bios ? if not go to the machines manufacturing website and look up your specific model and find the latest bios update and dl it , then extract it and read the readme file as to how you have to run it .

most require you to copy it to a disket and then boot to it but some bios updates are able to be executed from windows which is nice because most new machines do away with floppy drives .

if that doesnt work then pop in your board disc and look for a sata driver or a folder called sata and then run the files inside that folder , i just rebuilt my machine and had somewhat the same problem though the windows disc found the hdd after a few atempts , after instalation my windows and all my programs ran very slow till i ran that sata driver then things were good .

make sure to right tick the cdrom and tick open on that disc rather then running it from the menu of options it gives you , as my disc didnt give me the option to install the driver , i didnt know it was even there till i opened up the disc and found it .

one more thing to try is to unplug the current sata connection from the board and plug it into a diferent sata connection , sometimes this helps sometimes not , its worth a try at this point .

also you should try to debug your windows instalation rather then wiping and reinstall , there are many , many knowledgeable folks here that can and will help you remove all traces of spyware /viruses and help get your machine up and running like new again .

not only will your machine be running good , you will have a had a free crash course in windows cleaning and that is priceless as we all well no .

 

It appears to me that the windows set up doesnt see your SATA drive without loading the boards sata drivers.
What motherboard do you have? how old is it?
Do you have the original motherboard manual and motherboard driver disc. If you are missing them you can check out the motherboard manufactureres website as they will be available there for download. On that disc will be the sata drivers and it should be documented how to use them, basically just copy the contents of the driver folder to the floppy, without the folder. Do you have a floppy drive on your machine? if so follow the intructions to copy the files to a floppy.

When you are ready to re-install, boot from the xp disc, almost immediately , before you get as far as the EULA screen windows will display a blue screen with "windows set up" in the left top corner and along the bottom will be written "press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or Raid driver" at this point you need to hit F6, be quick because it isnt there long. Insert the floppy disc with the drivers and allow them to load, and then the installation continues.
I could type this all out but if you look at this site it details the installation procedure better than I can.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_install_-_graphic.htm

Take a read through and I hope it helps. I think you will find it will install fine once the SATA drivers are loaded.
Good Luck

 

I have a ABIT VT7 motherboard. I do have the original CD & floppy that came with it, but I do not have a floppy drive built into this machine. I DO remember having to borrow my father-in-law's when I first built the computer, maybe that's it....so

Should I try the F6 thing when window's setup kicks in or do the mobo cd first?

 

So, I bought a Floppy drive. Inserted the disk and went throught the procedure's...when I hit 'enter' to load from the floppy, it made some noise then nothing, asked me to hit enter again....

This is the Motherboard Floppy disk that came with it. It say's it's the SATA Driver Disk...is this right?

Thanks for all your help so far guy's!

 

If that disc is labelled sata drivers that would be it. When you hit f6 they should load.
It's possible that they are corrupt,(I know this sounds like a strange request but check the floppy cable is the correct way around on the drive it's easy to get it upside down)
I am doing this from memory as the last motherboard I had a problem with was a Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI that just wouldn't recognise the SATA drive until the drivers had been loaded.

I googled your motherboard and come up with this site. It appears that motherboard has its issues with SATA drives and drivers, have a browse though it may help.

http://forum.abit-usa.com/archive/index.php/f-39-p-2.html

 

do I make a new floppy of what? the entire driver's folder? Also, everytime I try to access any disk in the floppy drive it just keep's asking me if I want to format the disk or not....If I hit yes, it say's it can't be formatted and if I hit no, it does nothing.

This is frustrating...

 

It's possible the floppy discs you have are either write protected, look at the little tab and slide it so its shut, or un formatted. Do you have access to another pc with a floppy drive. Format them in there. The folder on the motherboard cd rom should be labelled sata drivers else download them here and copy to the floppy disc.

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/drivers.php?categories=1&model=162

Also check the floppy drive is connected to the motherboard correctly as it may not be functioning correctly.

Then just try the re-install again. Good luck.

 

the computer recognises the floppy drive, it show's up in "my Computer", I have the side of the cable with the twist attached to the mobo and the coloured side aligned with pin 1....should be right?

 

there's so much stuff in the d/l, I dont know what to put on the disk....man I suck

 

ok, then I have that installed correctly....still n luck on reading from the floppy. I tried making a new copy of the via driver's and still no luck

 

So the drivers are definitely copying to the floppy disk? Although the drive shows up in windows does it show the files on the disk when you explore it?

so walk me through what you have done.

You reboot the machine from the xp disc, you hit F6 to install the sata drivers. the floppy disc is accessed and files are copied? the green light on the front flashes and you can hear the disc being rotated and accessed. then what is displayed on the screen?

I can't think why this won't work and progress from here. Assuming the drivers are the correct ones for the board it should allow you to continue with the installation.

Got me stumped at present....I'll have a read about.

 

Ok. I boot from the XP cd, hit F6 and then it ask's for the floppy, i put that in, it spin's up, noises, flashing light and it asks me for the floppy again.

When i try to access the floppy from window's it just keep's telling me that the floppy is NOT formatted and if I want to format it now (i tried this even with a blank one), if I click yes it pretends it's about to start formatting the blank one and then tells me it can't. But I can access the blank floppy on my other computer ok.

That any more help?