HELP! Cannot reinstall XP on a SATA drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter wideglide01
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wideglide01

HELP! I ordered a pc with XP Home installed. I have a licensed copy
of XP Pro that I'd rather have on the system, however when I tried to
install Pro, I get an error that it cannot find the hard drive.

This is the first system I've owned with a serial ATA (SATA) drive. I
suspect that may be the problem. How do I get the installation
CD to recognize hard drive?

TIA




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Check your BIOS. The Boot order should be
1st boot device - floppy
2nd. boot device SATA (whatever brandname it is)
 
So how is it going to boot from CD??


johnf said:
Check your BIOS. The Boot order should be
1st boot device - floppy
2nd. boot device SATA (whatever brandname it is)
Click to expand...
 
Sorry, I meant check your BIOS to see if it's detecting the SATA drive.
If it has, then you can change the boot order for the install.
One thing puzzles me in your query though, is XP Home on the SATA?
 
Previously in microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support, "johnf"
Sorry, I meant check your BIOS to see if it's detecting the SATA drive.
If it has, then you can change the boot order for the install.
One thing puzzles me in your query though, is XP Home on the SATA?
Click to expand...

Yes, the system came pre-installed with XP Home so there's no problem
with the *computer* finding the SATA drive and booting off it. In
fact I'm on the pc now posting this.

The problem comes in when I change the boot order and have it boot off
of the licensed MS XP Pro CDROM install CD. It will boot and when it
goes through it's initial configuration procedure for pre
installation, looks for a hard drive, after a couple of minutes it
will come back and say it could not find any hard drives on the
system.

Strange.

On a semi-related note, does anyone know if I can put an ATA drive as
a slave to a SATA (master) drive? In other words, are they compatible
in the same box? I have a new 80gb ATA drive that I'd like to install
as a D drive in this pc but I don't know if SATA and ATA can be mixed
together (I'm not running RAID btw).







__________________________________________________________________________

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's
safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.
-Unknown
__________________________________________________________________________
Remove "die spammers" to email
 
No problems mixing SATA & ATA (IDE). The concept takes a bit of getting used
to, as, in Explorer, my C-drive is the SATA (which has my OS) & my D is the
ATA (Data only).
But if you check the setup with Partition Magic, it says Disk 1 is D-drive &
Disk 2 is the C-drive (SATA), so apparently that's the way the system sees
it.
Re your other problem, I've suddenly had a mental block. I have a horrible
feeling that you can't just 'upgrade' to Pro with Home already installed,
but will have to format first and do a clean install.
Also, is your Pro CD the full version or an OEM?
 
Previously in microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support, "johnf"
No problems mixing SATA & ATA (IDE). The concept takes a bit of getting used
to, as, in Explorer, my C-drive is the SATA (which has my OS) & my D is the
ATA (Data only).
But if you check the setup with Partition Magic, it says Disk 1 is D-drive &
Disk 2 is the C-drive (SATA), so apparently that's the way the system sees
it.
Re your other problem, I've suddenly had a mental block. I have a horrible
feeling that you can't just 'upgrade' to Pro with Home already installed,
but will have to format first and do a clean install.
Also, is your Pro CD the full version or an OEM?
Click to expand...

I have the full (non-OEM) version of XP Pro. I don't care about
saving any data since it's all new and I can copy across my wireless
network and same whatever data I need off this hard drive. I would be
doing a clean reformat and install.




__________________________________________________________________________

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's
safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.
-Unknown
__________________________________________________________________________
Remove "die spammers" to email
 
You need to boot from CD and press F6 when asked for scsi or raid drivers
and add your SATA conroller drivers
 
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