Hard drive undetected by XP

[Denis]

Normaly boot to win98 and then tried to upgrade to XP with
the CD. Tried booting from XP CD directly but even then
have a bleu screen with error message stating that there
is no Harddrive detected by XP so the installation have
stopped.

Thanks

-----Original Message-----
Hi,

If you are upgrading, are you loading Win98 first or are you booting the
WinXP CD?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone






.

..

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Denis.

Rick might not see this message since you started a new thread, rather than
continue the original one. Next time, click Reply, rather than New, and
your new message will be appended to the same Conversation (which we
old-timers still call a "thread").

If WinXP does not detect a hard drive when you boot from the WinXP CD-ROM,
it usually is because you are using a hard drive/controller combination for
which drivers are not on the WinXP CD-ROM. This happens, for example, when
I try to install WinXP on my computer, which normally boots from a SCSI
drive, without pressing F6 during Setup to install the SCSI drivers. I have
to use the same F6 procedure to install drivers for my onboard HighPoint
RAID controller if I am using a drive connected there as my boot device. In
either case, if I forget - or if I temporarily disable the expected
drive/controller before rebooting - WinXP complains that I have no HDs
connected.

WinXP is built on the NT platform; Win98 is built on the much older MS-DOS
platform. The two platforms deal with hardware - including hard drives -
MUCH differently, so things that work with Win9x/ME might not work in WinXP.
That's why we usually recommend that an upgrade from Win98 to WinXP start by
booting from the WinXP CD-ROM. If you boot into Win98 first, all the MS-DOS
type device drivers get loaded before the upgrade process ever begins, and
WinXP Setup must deal with those before installing the WinXP-type drivers.

I've ever used an ABIT mobo and don't know details of the BE6 or your UDMA
HD. Do you have WinXP-compatible drivers for the chipset/controller/HD?
They may have come on a floppy in the box with the mobo or drive, or you may
need to download current versions from the ABIT or Quantum websites and put
them on a floppy before you run WinXP Setup.

RC

 

[Guest]

Thanks RC,

Sorry for the new "thread".... first time on discussion
forum so....

I'll trie to get most recent driver from ABIT and
Quantum. But do I have to reformat my HD, reinstall my
win98 and then upgrade to XP or just with the right driver
and the F6 key during xp install it will be ok ?

Thanks

-----Original Message-----
Hi, Denis.

Rick might not see this message since you started a new thread, rather than
continue the original one. Next time, click Reply, rather than New, and
your new message will be appended to the same Conversation (which we
old-timers still call a "thread").

If WinXP does not detect a hard drive when you boot from the WinXP CD-ROM,
it usually is because you are using a hard

drive/controller combination for

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Denis.

Soon you'll be discussing threads and such with the rest of us, who were
Newbies not so long ago. ;<)

Drivers for most current hardware is on the WinXP CD-ROM and I doubt that
you need additional ones for your ABIT and Quantum. However, your symptom
of "no hard drives" when you KNOW that HDs are there usually means the WinXP
is missing something that it needs to recognize those drives. Drivers for
most hardware - including secondary HDs - can be added after WinXP is
installed, using Device Manager or other methods much like we did in
Win9x/ME. But drivers for the BOOT DEVICE must be incorporated into the
"guts" of WinXP by Setup during installation. And Setup doesn't know how to
look for such drivers except on the WinXP CD-ROM and, if not there, on a
floppy diskette. Setup's built-in "smarts" are enough to let it work with
the HD to a point, including copying all those files from the CD to the HD,
but when it finishes that portion of the installation and attempts to boot
into WinXP for the first time to run the GUI phase of Setup, it dies if it
doesn't have the proper drivers for your boot device. Usually the symptom
is a BSOD with Stop 0x7B, Inaccessible_Boot_Device, but sometimes it can't
even find a hard drive.

You should not have to reformat your HD, although it would clear out all
that accumulated deadwood and garbage that you have been meaning to get rid
of anyhow. The only reason to choose "upgrade" rather than a "clean
install" is to "migrate" your drivers and applications from Win98 to WinXP.
But if Win98 has already been uninstalled, you'd have to reinstall the apps
before you could migrate them anyhow. Might as well just reinstall them
into WinXP, skipping all that. Back up your data, of course, if you do plan
to reformat. Don't bother to back up your apps; you will install them fresh
into WinXP from their CDs or other original media. Don't bother to backup
Win98, because you won't need it again.

Just set your computer to boot from CD. Insert your WinXP CD-ROM into the
drive and boot. Follow the prompts, including the first one that asks if
you want to repartition and/or reformat. Unless you plan to install
Win9x/ME on this computer, format it NTFS all the way. If you are using the
"upgrade" version of the WinXP CD-ROM, it will look for a qualifying version
of Windows on your computer; finding none installed, it will ask to "see"
the Win98 CD-ROM momentarily, then continue the installation.

Make sure your hardware configuration is correct, both physically (drive
jumpers, cables, etc.) and in the BIOS, then try booting from the WinXP
CD-ROM. If things don't go smoothly, tell us step-by-step what you did and
what you saw. We'll get you going. ;<)

RC