The drivers for the Seagate drive should be available for download from the Seagate website.  If you don't have a floppy drive on your computer, you have a couple of alternatives:  a) buy a cheap USB floppy drive, or b) slipstream the SATA drivers into the XP install CD, with the free program called NLite, as detailed on this page:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/resolving-setup-did-not-find-any-hard-disk-drives-during-windows-xp-installation/

Also sometimes there is an option in the BIOS to disable the SATA interface, which you do during setup, and then turn it back on after the install is complete.  Most newer systems default to AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) access mode for the disks.   Just go into the BIOS and disable AHCI.

switch BIOS setting to IDE mode

Does the BIOS detects the correct size of the disc?

  I might be missing something here but it drivers for the hard drive don't (or shouldn't) come in to play. It is drivers for the controller in the notebook that are the problem.

   I would agree with Lee that XP will not recognize the controller without the F6 option and if the controller is set to AHCI you will have to change in in the BIOS to IDE. It is usually more a selection (IDE or AHCI) as opposed to disableing AHCI.

right.....

I've tried looking for drivers and Seagate reckon that they are supported by the OS

I've tried changing the drive from "Auto" to IDE, and it still doesn't work

It's the first one I have come across like this, normally I am able to find drivers but on this occasion nothing is available, from what I can see anyway???

Any more ideas?

Chris

BIOS upgrade ?

Will give it a go :)

Thanks :)

  If the BIOS upgrade doesn't do the try go back in to the bios. There is yet another setting that might help you. You have set it to IDE but see if there is yet another option about "Native" or "Legacy". If memory serves me "Legacy" or Native Off will essentially tell the computer that the hard drive is and older PATA drive.

If this is an older laptop, it just may be, that the harddrive is to large. I've seen laptops, which were limitd to a size for any reasons, mostly PATA drives, but may be a point if the new drive is much larger than the old one.

Another issue may be, that this laptop has an exotic controller, which is not regognized or simply misinterpreted by windows.You may look on the system disk, if you have it, if there is a special driver for the controller.

What was the size of the old / new drive
Have you ever tried to install a RTM or SP3 version of XP?

hi all

tried the bios update, with no joy

looked for the native/legacy setting but there's nothing

tried ATAPI, IDE, AUTO no joy

the drive is 80gb, the old one was 40gb

Unfortunately this is a clients machine, supplied without any discs :(

Could it be the manufacturer of the Hard Disc? I don't really want to have to buy another if it was to do the same thing?!?!?!?

I've not tried to install anything else other than XP SP2, the weird thing is that the BIOS is detecting the drive, to me it looks like SATA drivers are required using the F6 option, but Seagate seem to think that these are not needed and Fujitsu Siemens do not appear to have anything on their site for download

Would be nice if I could use maybe another piece of software to get the machine running to a state where I can install XP other than booting from CD

I was wondering if there was anything I could manually put on the drive to get it to detect

When I select IDE, it is saying "secondary master" - which seems weird, surely it should be primary master??? - cannot see any jumpers to change this though

Gotta admit, this one is stumping me!  :)

Chris

> secondary master
is there any posibility to connect the drive to any other port?
was the old drive also secondary master?

This need not to be the issue, because SATA drives are handled a little bit different.

Can you see your CD ROM drive in BIOS?

Have you had a look onto the driver CD for the notebook, if there are drivers for a controller?

you need external floppy drive with sata  drivers for your motherboard. then during winxp installation  press F6 to install them

If I was to get an external floppy, where can I get the SATA drivers from? I have looked on Seagates website and they are insistant that their drives are all supported by Windows installation drivers?!?!?

  I am going to have to restate that Seagate is correct. There are no drivers for hard drives. The F6 option when you are installing XP is for controllers. Have you double checked with the manufacturer of the notebook (Fujitsu) and triple confirmed that there are no drivers for the hard drive controller to let you do an F6 install?

   The slave/master setting is more or less immaterial. The norebook should also have BIOS setting to select boot order if need be. Another thing to check is if Fujutsu has a "recovery CD" available. That is a bootable CD that would restore the notebook to its factory condition (XP). Seagate is out of the loop  on this. You want to fucus on Fujitsu for either a recovery CD or controller drivers. There is always the possibility that the Segate drive is defective too.

  Another thing that would benefit you greatly is downloading and burning UBCD4WIN. It is a bootable "rescue" CD that will definitely let you know if the hard drive is there and working. A ton of diagnostics. I think it might even have an option to install XP ...

Thanks for all the advice, what I've done is ended up buying another hard drive, and installing Vista which appears to have worked, although I have encountered another problem

The sound is not working - the drivers "appear" to be working, but there is no sound at all

Does anyone have any ideas?

Also there is a mass storage controller driver missing, I've taken a look on the FS website but couldnt see anything

Many thanks in advance

Chris