New HDD not seen by WinXP installation.

[Makro]

He there,

after my old HDD crashed I just installed a new one. It's a Western Digital
120GB SATA, type WD1200 BEVS.
Unfortunately WinXP doesn't recognize it, so I cannot even partition /
format it.
However the new HDD is fully recognized by the BIOS as "WDC
WD11200BEVS-26UST0-SATA). So I assume it's correctly installed, my Laptop
should be able to handle it and it's no HW error.

What's wrong????

 

[philo]

He there,

after my old HDD crashed I just installed a new one. It's a Western Digital
120GB SATA, type WD1200 BEVS.
Unfortunately WinXP doesn't recognize it, so I cannot even partition /
format it.
However the new HDD is fully recognized by the BIOS as "WDC
WD11200BEVS-26UST0-SATA). So I assume it's correctly installed, my Laptop
should be able to handle it and it's no HW error.

What's wrong????

At the beginning of the installation hit F6 to install additional drivers

then load the SATA drivers from a floppy.


If your laptop does not have a floppy drive
there are some work-arounds.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

 

[Anna]

At the beginning of the installation hit F6 to install additional drivers

then load the SATA drivers from a floppy.


If your laptop does not have a floppy drive
there are some work-arounds.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

Makro:
Although it's a possibility, I wouldn't think this is a SATA controller
driver issue. I'm assuming the new WD HDD is replacing another SATA HDD that
had been previously installed and had properly functioned before it
"crashed", yes?

When you say "WinXP doesn't recognize it", are you referring to the fact
that you've booted to the XP OS installation CD to install the OS but get a
message to the effect that setup cannot continue because no hard drive has
been found in the system? Since the WD HDD is new I'm assuming no OS has
been installed on it, right? So that you're using the XP OS installation CD
to do precisely that, right?

What's the make/model of your laptop?
Anna

 

[Makro]

Quite some questions in return to my "trouble ticket". I'll try to answer them:

* yes, the new WD HDD (120 GB) should replace a crashed FSC (Fujitsu
Siemens, 60 GB, type "FSC MHT 2060 BH).
* my Laptop is an FSC Life Book S7020, about 3 years old
* the FSC service did confirm me that this model is "tested" with up to 120
GB HDD's and that the vendor type doesn't really matter, as long as it's a
SATA
* and yes, the WD HDD is brand new, so no OS has been installed on it yet.
I'm booting from the WinXP installation CD and try to partition and format
the HDD from the installation CD.

Meanwhile I'll search for the WD SATA drivers anyway. But I doubt that this
is the root cause since the WinXP installation error message says something
like "no installed HDDs could be found" (actual message in German).

 

[Anna]

Quite some questions in return to my "trouble ticket". I'll try to answer
them:

* yes, the new WD HDD (120 GB) should replace a crashed FSC (Fujitsu
Siemens, 60 GB, type "FSC MHT 2060 BH).
* my Laptop is an FSC Life Book S7020, about 3 years old
* the FSC service did confirm me that this model is "tested" with up to
120
GB HDD's and that the vendor type doesn't really matter, as long as it's a
SATA
* and yes, the WD HDD is brand new, so no OS has been installed on it yet.
I'm booting from the WinXP installation CD and try to partition and format
the HDD from the installation CD.

Meanwhile I'll search for the WD SATA drivers anyway. But I doubt that
this
is the root cause since the WinXP installation error message says
something
like "no installed HDDs could be found" (actual message in German).

Makro:
Well, "philo" may be on to something in that the issue may indeed be the
need for a compatible SATA controller driver in order for the XP OS to
recognize your new SATA HDD.

But I'm still not sure since you have not indicated that the Fujitsu HDD
that's being replaced was a SATA, and not PATA, HDD. I had assumed that the
drive that was being replaced was a SATA HDD and that the system therefore
had previously recognized a SATA HDD since the motherboard contained an
integrated SATA controller driver and there was no need for you, the user,
to install such through the "F6" process when setting-up a new XP OS onto a
SATA HDD.

I take it we're dealing here with European models with which I'm unfamiliar.

The message that you receive via the XP OS installation CD that setup could
not detect an installed HDD in the system is very frequently an indication
that a SATA HDD has been installed but the system is unable to locate an
appropriate SATA controller driver in order to detect the disk's presence in
the system.

The fact that the SATA HDD is recognized in the BIOS is immaterial. Anyway,
do check with the laptop's manufacturer or your supplier whether an
auxiliary SATA controller driver is necessary in connection with the new WD
SATA HDD.
Anna

 

[Adrian C]

He there,

after my old HDD crashed I just installed a new one. It's a Western Digital
120GB SATA, type WD1200 BEVS.
Unfortunately WinXP doesn't recognize it, so I cannot even partition /
format it.
However the new HDD is fully recognized by the BIOS as "WDC
WD11200BEVS-26UST0-SATA). So I assume it's correctly installed, my Laptop
should be able to handle it and it's no HW error.

What's wrong????

If you had stated the make/model of your laptop, help would have come
sooner instead of confusing 'Anna' - who almost always seems to be be
confused around here There is _no_ such thing as a Hard drive
manufacturer specific SATA driver.

Fujistu-Siemens has a pretty good site of drivers including the F6 SATA
driver you will need for installing XP.

Go here
<http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/support/linkapplication.html?LNG=EN&ID=23531>

and find S7020 in the last dropdown list. With the following page select
XP, and expand the "tree" view for SATA. The driver is there.

 

[Makro]

Hi,
finally made it
After further consultation with the Laptop vendor (FSC) it turned out that
indeed the SATA driver is the missing part. Strange that this is provided
only by the computer vendor and not by the HDD supplier.
Could download it then from the FSC homepage. For selecting the right driver
you need the exact type of the chipset which is documented nowhere - just FSC
knows... :-(
Then by making use of the "nLite" tool I could create a new XP CD with the
included SATA driver.

Thanks to Anna and philo for your help on the way!!!

 

[Makro]

Hi Adrian,
correct hint - just saw your comment too late :-( but solved it in parallel.
Thx anyway!

 

[Bob I]

Hi,
finally made it
After further consultation with the Laptop vendor (FSC) it turned out that
indeed the SATA driver is the missing part. Strange that this is provided
only by the computer vendor and not by the HDD supplier.

Not strange at all, the HD manufacturer didn't make the hardware on the
motherboard, so why should they provide drivers?

 

[Anna]

Not strange at all, the HD manufacturer didn't make the hardware on the
motherboard, so why should they provide drivers?

Bob:
While it's true that the HDD manufacturers do not directly create SATA
controller drivers, they work very closely with the entities that do, such
as Silicon Image for one. So when a possible issue arises that appears to
bear on a SATA controller driver issue, while it's always wise for the to
check with the machine's manuf. (OEM) and/or the motherboard manuf., we've
found in more than a few cases that it's wise for the end-user to contact
the HDD's tech support for assistance when the issue has not been resolved
through the "usual sources". As we have found over the years tech support
from the OEM and the motherboard's manuf. can be very iffy in far too many
cases, while (by & large) superior tech support can be obtained from the HDD
manuf.

Needless to say nothing is 100% certain in this area, but there's no harm
for the user to exhaust all possible resources when the need arises.
Anna