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ChaffeFlag for Afghanistan

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Windows XP install CD does not recognize Hard Drive

Hello guys,
I'm trying to install windows xp on a Maxtor 40GB hard drive, but for some reason, windows is telling me that it didn't find a hard drive on my machine and it's only giving me the F3 option "Quit".  I checked the bios and the hard drive is showing just fine there.  I was able to install windows Vista (beta) on this same hard drive with these same settings. But windows XP or 2000 wont install because the installation CD's wont recognize the HardDrive.  any ideas or thoughts are much appreciated.  Thanks.

cb
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mwnnj
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Hi Chaffe,
if you have installed firstly windows vista ,it could be the installation of xp is recognising the previos vista installation and this block the downgrading of the sytem,possible solutions:
try to wipe the harddrive with rescue disks of partition magic-delete all previos partitions and make new ones hwere you'll install xp
could be you must also clean the MBR nad for best results do a low level formatting of the hardrive using the maxtor's tool MaxBlast 4:
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=57
if you have an s-ata drive please do inform us,and if there are any special controllers which need special driver like raid or pci-to-ide controller use the F6-button while windows installation is loading and then add the drivers from a diskette ,so you could preceed with the installation process and install the system on the drive,,,

Cheers!
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Can you hear the disk turning? Make sure the Power connector is attached firmly to that Disk.
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ASKER

Thanks guys for the reply.  One thing that I forgot to tell you about my set up is that my hard drive is an IDE Hard drive (40GB Maxtor) and is hooked up to a IDE-to-SATA circuit that plugs into an SATA port on the motherboard (because I'm out of IDE ports on the motherboard) so do you think I need to focus my efforts on finding a driver for the SATA-to-IDE circuit, or do I still need to work on finding a driver for the HardDrive itself.  Again, Windows Vista was able to see and install on the hard drive just fine.  Also, the bios sees the hard drive.  Thanks.

cb
That depends on your setup and BIOS. Some boards with sata controllers can be used in raid or non raid modes, and that has to be set in the bios. If you can set the sata controller to run in IDE mode you shouldn't need a separate driver, but if not you will need the driver. Sometimes you will also have to make sure the system can boot from the SATA ports, also via the BIOS.
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Rindi,  This machine is a new machine and it had an SATA hard drive when I got it from Dell.  Are you suggesting that my BIOS might have a "run in IDE" mode that I need to select?  Please advice.
Yes, something like that. I don't know what your BIOS looks like, but usually this will be somewhere in "Peripheral" setup, or IO or something similar. There you can usually decide whether you want to use the SATA controller in standard or enhanced IDE mode, RAID mode etc.
normally, you can find those settings in the mobo manual, or on the Dell website
hooking your ide harddrive through ide-to-sata dapter on sata controller is not th eoptimal setting cuz theoretically you'll not get any performance advantage unless your ide bus is only 66MHz,if you have ide ata 133 bus then surely you must assemble the hardrive as a master on primery ide channel 1,possible combination of your drives:
primery ide channel 1 ,master: the 40 gb maxtor where you want to install the xp
primary ide channel 1,slave:a slave harddrive or cd-rom ,or dvd-rom
secondary ide channel 2,master:cd-rw or dvd-rw
secondary ide channel 2,slave:another slave harddrive,or cd-rom or dvd-rom
s-ata port with ide-to-sata adapter,drive must be set as master:a non system harddrive or optical drive
load your system on the 40 GB harddrive set as master on primary ide channel 1 and install windows xp then under windows try to find the appropriate driver so you can install that other device hoocked on the s-ata controller and you got it.
check out if the BIOS can even recognise the drive hoocked on the s-ata port,very importaint.

later
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ASKER

mwnnj, I do understand that I'm taking a performance hit by doing this, but I have a bunch of IDE drives that I'm not ready to throw away yet :)
rindi, I found that setting in my BIOS and got it working.  Thanks for your help and for the other replies from everybody else.

cb
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rindi
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