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XP install program won't detect my HDD

S

slash196

Golden Member
Trying to format a 'working' vista install and put XP on, when I boot from CD the install program pretends that I don't have an HD installed. BIOS detects it just fine, Vista will boot from it just fine, what on earth is preventing the XP install from detecting it?
 
in most newer bios's there is an option to change the HDD from SATA to IDE mode or some variation of that. Go have a look at the options and experiment.
 
XP needs drivers for your SATA hard drive controller. Hit the "F6" key very early during the XP Install routine and supply the SATA drivers via a floppy disk. It's also possible to slipstream the drivers into an XP Install CD. Or, as slash196 suggests, you can set the motherboard's BIOS to use "IDE Compatibility Mode", where the SATA controller appears to be an IDE drive controller and can use XP's built-in generic IDE drivers.

Before doing any of this, make sure that your XP Install CD contains, at least, Service Pack 1. Preferably SP2. If it doesn't then slipstream SP2 into it using NLite. That's also how to add the SATA controller drivers to the CD.
 
No floppy drive, and I don't have an install image for XP, I just have the disk, so I can't slipstream anything in. My BIOS is one of the crappy OEMs so I don't have the option of running the SATA as IDE. Are you telling me that there's no way I can get rid of Vista without a floppy drive?

Hatred for microsoft: Increasing.
 
Originally posted by: slash196
No floppy drive, and I don't have an install image for XP, I just have the disk, so I can't slipstream anything in. My BIOS is one of the crappy OEMs so I don't have the option of running the SATA as IDE. Are you telling me that there's no way I can get rid of Vista without a floppy drive?

Hatred for microsoft: Increasing.
Click to expand...

lol, you can just rip that disk to the hard drive. Then use nlite to slip in sp2.

Hopefully you still have your vista install working? Why are you mad that you are having trouble installing a very old and outdated OS, without the old and outdated hardware that goes with it?

I just got grandma a new emachine for 250 at OM and it runs vista great. She was upgrading from windows 95 though lol. Only because companies are not making drivers for 95 anymore and here printer broke. Not that she needed or wanted a new PC. It was an IBM and nothing had ever been replaced except cdrom.
 
Are you telling me that there's no way I can get rid of Vista without a floppy drive?
Click to expand...

Not easily. If you have a USB floppy that might work, but I'm not 100% sure. Your best options are to stick with Vista, install a form of Linux or create a slipstreamed XP disc with the right drivers. Do you actually have a problem with Vista that you can't fix?

Why are you mad that you are having trouble installing a very old and outdated OS, without the old and outdated hardware that goes with it?
Click to expand...

Because the XP installer is crap even by 2002 standards and it took MS another 5 years to release a new OS with an installer that isn't crap.
 
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