OS install problem on Dell pc- HELP !!!!!

[Jim H]

I am trying to install Windows XP on a friends Dimension 8400 tha
keeps blue screening. They had a friend of the husband look at i
and he said it was a bad hard drive. They then called Dell, who ra
diagnostics on it, and Dell said it was a software issue. I got th
pc, did a diagnostics and it said the hard drive was good. I Gdiske
the drive, partitioned, and formatted it. I then went to instal
Windows. The setup started by copying the files needed. It the
asked if I wanted to setup Windows, to press "enter". I hi
"enter" and it said that it could not detect a hard drive.
went into the BIOS and it read the drive. I tried this several times.
The hard drive is a Seagate SATA 160bg drive. I also cannot figur
out how to enable the floppy drive. I went into the bios an
it has an option to disable the floppy. It says that if the flopp
is a usb floppy, it will always be "on". The floppy is
IDE and the only option buttons available are: off, usb, interna
(IDE), and read-only (which make it so the floppy will not write).
cannot find out how to enable the floppy drive

 

[Jan Alter]

The floppy should be set for IDE. Windows of course won't be detecting that
SATA drive until you can get those SATA drivers available using the floppy.
Try a different floppy cable and be sure you've got a working floppy drive
in the first place.

 

[C.]

I am trying to install Windows XP on a friends Dimension 8400 that
keeps blue screening. They had a friend of the husband look at it
and he said it was a bad hard drive. They then called Dell, who ran
diagnostics on it, and Dell said it was a software issue. I got the
pc, did a diagnostics and it said the hard drive was good. I Gdisked
the drive, partitioned, and formatted it. I then went to install
Windows. The setup started by copying the files needed. It then
asked if I wanted to setup Windows, to press "enter". I hit
"enter" and it said that it could not detect a hard drive. I
went into the BIOS and it read the drive. I tried this several times.
The hard drive is a Seagate SATA 160bg drive. I also cannot figure
out how to enable the floppy drive. I went into the bios and
it has an option to disable the floppy. It says that if the floppy
is a usb floppy, it will always be "on". The floppy is a
IDE and the only option buttons available are: off, usb, internal
(IDE), and read-only (which make it so the floppy will not write). I
cannot find out how to enable the floppy drive.

Enable floppy by setting it to internal and set it to seek at boot.Set boot
configuration to cd rom,and when it asks for drivers before it copys files
you need to load them.I think you press f5 or f6,not sure.Look at the bottom
of the screen.
C