windows xp setup not detecting hard drives

[Cian]

In Dec. 2005 I built myself a brand new PC from scratch...got a brand new
motherboard which just came out that year, got my 700W powersupply, super
duper graphics card and a HUGE sharp looking case to put it all in. But, I
wasnt going to buy new Harddrives or DVD/CD ROM drives because I previously
bought a Dell Insperion XBS back in 2000 and still had everything from this
computer. My windows XP disk was the same one that came with my Dell in
2000. Everything installed on my new computer and life was great.

Sometime earlier this year I managed to get a virus/trojan horse which
totally screwed up my hard drive (40GB Western Digital IDE HD-from my 2000
Dell). So my desktop has been down for a bunch of months (thank god for my
apple laptop) and now i'm trying to put the pieces back together on my
MONSTER desktop.

Now that I'm trying to reinstall windows XP, I'm getting the message that
"windows setup can not detect any hard drives" when I get to a certain point
during installation. Why would i have this problem suddenly now using the
same disk to install windows that I used when I first built my pc in Dec
2005? I realize this disk is quite old, pre-service pack 1 even - but I
didnt have this problem in 2005. I searched google and found some others
with similar problems, but didnt quite understand their solutions (most of
the problems dealt with SATA HD's while mine are EIDE). I also read this
microsoft article: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314859

which relates to the problem. Why would I need to install extra drivers
(which arent on the xp disk) now when I didnt have to previously? Could the
virus/trojan screwed something up I dont know about? I've checked my Bios,
the Hard drives are being detected correctly (i also tried to install on a
20GB Western Digital EIDE HD and getting the same problem - this HD hasnt had
any virus problems) and I've checked the boot order and that seems fine as
well.

Barring the virus screwing up something I dont know about, could these two
hard drives be totally fried? I have 3 other Western Digital EIDE HD's
(sizes 160GB, 250Gb &250GB) but these are for data storage only and have
never been used for an OS (and frankly I cant afford to lose the data in an
attempt to see if the problem would be gone using one of these drives).

Also, I dont have any floppies that came with these hard drives - I never
ever needed them for anything in the 20 years now that i've been using PC's
(and installing my own hard drives), plus the only pc with a floppy drive is
the one I cant get windows on.

In the event that this is not a problem with some other part of the pc which
I'm not familiar with, should I buy a new Hard drive from the store and see
if it works then, or buy an updated windows xp set from a store keeping my
older hard drives?

Thanks for taking the time to try and help me.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

In Dec. 2005 I built myself a brand new PC from scratch...got a
brand new motherboard which just came out that year, got my 700W
powersupply, super duper graphics card and a HUGE sharp looking
case to put it all in. But, I wasnt going to buy new Harddrives or
DVD/CD ROM drives because I previously bought a Dell Insperion XBS
back in 2000 and still had everything from this computer. My
windows XP disk was the same one that came with my Dell in 2000.
Everything installed on my new computer and life was great.

Sometime earlier this year I managed to get a virus/trojan horse
which totally screwed up my hard drive (40GB Western Digital IDE
HD-from my 2000 Dell). So my desktop has been down for a bunch of
months (thank god for my apple laptop) and now i'm trying to put
the pieces back together on my MONSTER desktop.

Now that I'm trying to reinstall windows XP, I'm getting the
message that "windows setup can not detect any hard drives" when I
get to a certain point during installation. Why would i have this
problem suddenly now using the same disk to install windows that I
used when I first built my pc in Dec 2005? I realize this disk is
quite old, pre-service pack 1 even - but I didnt have this problem
in 2005. I searched google and found some others with similar
problems, but didnt quite understand their solutions (most of the
problems dealt with SATA HD's while mine are EIDE). I also read
this microsoft article: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314859

which relates to the problem. Why would I need to install extra
drivers (which arent on the xp disk) now when I didnt have to
previously? Could the virus/trojan screwed something up I dont
know about? I've checked my Bios, the Hard drives are being
detected correctly (i also tried to install on a 20GB Western
Digital EIDE HD and getting the same problem - this HD hasnt had
any virus problems) and I've checked the boot order and that seems
fine as well.

Barring the virus screwing up something I dont know about, could
these two hard drives be totally fried? I have 3 other Western
Digital EIDE HD's (sizes 160GB, 250Gb &250GB) but these are for
data storage only and have never been used for an OS (and frankly I
cant afford to lose the data in an attempt to see if the problem
would be gone using one of these drives).

Also, I dont have any floppies that came with these hard drives - I
never ever needed them for anything in the 20 years now that i've
been using PC's (and installing my own hard drives), plus the only
pc with a floppy drive is the one I cant get windows on.

In the event that this is not a problem with some other part of the
pc which I'm not familiar with, should I buy a new Hard drive from
the store and see if it works then, or buy an updated windows xp
set from a store keeping my older hard drives?

The solution if fairly straight-forward...

You must locate and download the driver for the hard disk drive controller.
With that you can perform an install (repair or clean) using the "F6" part
of the Windows XP setup to install the proper driver so that Windows XP
setup can see and utilize your hard disk drive.

Usually - a USB floppy diskette driver will work fine for this - given your
motherboard fully supports it.

Or you can Google for and integrate the controller drivers into your Windows
XP installation media and use the new installation media to perform whatever
operation you need to.

 

[Cian]

The solution if fairly straight-forward...

You must locate and download the driver for the hard disk drive controller.
With that you can perform an install (repair or clean) using the "F6" part
of the Windows XP setup to install the proper driver so that Windows XP
setup can see and utilize your hard disk drive.

Usually - a USB floppy diskette driver will work fine for this - given your
motherboard fully supports it.

Or you can Google for and integrate the controller drivers into your Windows
XP installation media and use the new installation media to perform whatever
operation you need to.

Hi Shenan,

Thanks for your timely reply. I wanted to point out that the microsoft
knowledge base article whose link I provide in my original post above,
clearly states that F6 will only use floppy disk drives to load drivers
from...usb flash drives or other usb/external drives are not supported and
won't work.

Again, this brings me back to my problem...the only floppy drive I have is
on the computer that I can't put the Windows xp on.

Moreover, I wanted to see if anyone had an explanation for the change in
behavior; when previously the same Hard drives and this version of windows xp
worked together - now they dont.

As a solution, would an updated (SP2) version of windows XP solve my problem
- the idea being a later version of the OS will have the correct drivers.

Or, could this be a hard drive problem, and if I got a new hard drive (as in
the old one is totally fried and will never work again) will my device driver
problem be solved.

Thanks.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Thanks for your timely reply. I wanted to point out that the
microsoft knowledge base article whose link I provide in my
original post above, clearly states that F6 will only use floppy
disk drives to load drivers from...usb flash drives or other
usb/external drives are not supported and won't work.

I have personally used USB Floppy Diskette Drives to install many machines
that needed drivers at the F6 point of the installation. It all depends on
what your motherboard BIOS supports, really.

I also mentioned integrating the drivers into your installation media.

Again, this brings me back to my problem...the only floppy drive I
have is on the computer that I can't put the Windows xp on.

Moreover, I wanted to see if anyone had an explanation for the
change in behavior; when previously the same Hard drives and this
version of windows xp worked together - now they dont.

The hard drives may be the same - is the motherboard/controller card?

As a solution, would an updated (SP2) version of windows XP solve
my problem - the idea being a later version of the OS will have the
correct drivers.

Only if you integrate the drivers as well as SP2. SP2 would give you the
larger drives support - and integrating the drivers would give you - well -
the drivers.

Or, could this be a hard drive problem, and if I got a new hard
drive (as in the old one is totally fried and will never work
again) will my device driver problem be solved.

It could be. Inexpensive to try and if it is not a solution and you decide
to keep the hard disk drive - you essentially just gain space (perhaps for a
backup?)

Thanks.

NP.

 

[DL]

If I can butt in; you place the controler drivers on the floppy, they are
usually available from the motherboard site

 

[David B.]

A USB floppy WILL work. The other option would be to slipstream SP2, than
add the necessary drivers to your installation CD using nLite.

 

[Ian D]

Thanks for your timely reply. I wanted to point out that the microsoft

knowledge base article whose link I provide in my original post above,
clearly states that F6 will only use floppy disk drives to load drivers
from...usb flash drives or other usb/external drives are not supported and
won't work.

Again, this brings me back to my problem...the only floppy drive I have is
on the computer that I can't put the Windows xp on.

The article is correct. You can't use flash drives or other drives in
formats
that aren't compatible with floppy formatting (FAT12). But that does not
include a USB floppy drive which will be seen by the system as an A drive,
just like an internal drive. XP won't know the difference. You only have to
make sure USB legacy devices are enabled in the BIOS. When you press
F6 the XP installer will read the external floppy with no problem.