XP install does not detect hard drive

[Guest]

A week ago, I got a virus in the system area of my hard drive. I ran virus checkers and cleaners -- the viruses are gone, but system files were damaged. I needed to get another hard drive for a different computer I'm building anyway, so I now have two hard drives, both 80 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9

I disconnected the old hard drive, plugged in the new drive, ran the installation for it. I then reset and booted from the XP Pro CD to do a totally new installion. The XP installation continually refuses to acknowledge that there is a hard drive installed

I've tried putting the old drive back in, and booted with the XP Pro CD. Again, no hard drive detected. HOWEVER, I can still load up to an unstable Windows XP

XP Setup, against all evidence to the contrary, insists there are no hard drives installed.

 

[Mike]

A week ago, I got a virus in the system area of my hard drive. I ran

virus checkers and cleaners -- the viruses are gone, but system files were
damaged. I needed to get another hard drive for a different computer I'm
building anyway, so I now have two hard drives, both 80 GB Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 9.

I disconnected the old hard drive, plugged in the new drive, ran the

installation for it. I then reset and booted from the XP Pro CD to do a
totally new installion. The XP installation continually refuses to
acknowledge that there is a hard drive installed.

I've tried putting the old drive back in, and booted with the XP Pro CD.

Again, no hard drive detected. HOWEVER, I can still load up to an unstable
Windows XP.

XP Setup, against all evidence to the contrary, insists there are no hard

drives installed.

As your pc starts, press whatever key is necessary to get into SETUP
(BIOS).. older BIOS have a section to detect IDE drives.. newer ones will
take you into STANDARD setup where the IDE is detected.. ensure that BIOS
recognizes the drive.. Exit and Save, then boot your computer from the CD..

 

[Ron Sommer]

Do you see the drive in the Bios?
Is the drive formatted and partitioned?
What does "ran the installation" mean?
--
Ron Sommer

A week ago, I got a virus in the system area of my hard drive. I ran

virus checkers and cleaners -- the viruses are gone, but system files were
damaged. I needed to get another hard drive for a different computer I'm
building anyway, so I now have two hard drives, both 80 GB Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 9.

I disconnected the old hard drive, plugged in the new drive, ran the

installation for it. I then reset and booted from the XP Pro CD to do a
totally new installion. The XP installation continually refuses to
acknowledge that there is a hard drive installed.

I've tried putting the old drive back in, and booted with the XP Pro CD.

Again, no hard drive detected. HOWEVER, I can still load up to an unstable
Windows XP.

XP Setup, against all evidence to the contrary, insists there are no hard

drives installed.

 

[Alex Nichol]

A week ago, I got a virus in the system area of my hard drive. I ran virus checkers and cleaners -- the viruses are gone, but system files were damaged. I needed to get another hard drive for a different computer I'm building anyway, so I now have two hard drives, both 80 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9.

I disconnected the old hard drive, plugged in the new drive, ran the installation for it. I then reset and booted from the XP Pro CD to do a totally new installion. The XP installation continually refuses to acknowledge that there is a hard drive installed.

I do not like the sound of 'ran the installation for it'. This
sounds as if you prepared it with some software that came with it, into
a form XP does not recognise. Such a drive should simply be plugged in,
and then checked in the BIOS setup so that it is recognised and seen to
be in LBA mode. Then XP Setup will handle the partitioning and
formatting, after you boot the XP CD direct

 

[Guest]

Both drives were OEM, the first came with the system when I bought, with XP already installed. I have never changed the hard drive's settings

The installation software was downloaded from the Maxtor website. The BIOS recognizes the drive's presence

I don't believe it is an incorrect hard drive installation that is the problem. When I first found that the virus had left the system area corrupted, I burnt to CD everything I wanted to keep. I then popped in the XP CD, and reset. The XP CD booted up, scanned the system's devices, and gave me the welcome screen, with the option to install, repair, or exit. Both the install and repair options, when selected, denied that a hard drive was present. Note: at this point, I had not yet made any changes to the BIOS, reinstalled the hard drive, or in any way altered the system's settings

I'm not worried about losing any data, and would just as soon start from scratch. What is the best advice to get my system to a point where XP will recognize the hard drive, so that I can start rebuilding my system? What specific settings should I make sure are used to install the hard drive?

 

[Ken and Faith]

I almost hate to respond because I am very vauge on how I did it. I
actually bought a drive and XP did not recongnize it at all. What I had to
do is go the the Control pannel- Administrative Tools - Computer
Management - Disk Management- I remember having to set the disk as active
or something from there. Unfortunately I can not remember what steps I had
to take from there (and can not recreate it now to list the steps for you).
Later on I got a virus and when I restarted my computer I had to do it
again, I just had to mess with the menus.

Sorry if this does not help.

Both drives were OEM, the first came with the system when I bought, with

XP already installed. I have never changed the hard drive's settings.

The installation software was downloaded from the Maxtor website. The

BIOS recognizes the drive's presence.

I don't believe it is an incorrect hard drive installation that is the

problem. When I first found that the virus had left the system area
corrupted, I burnt to CD everything I wanted to keep. I then popped in the
XP CD, and reset. The XP CD booted up, scanned the system's devices, and
gave me the welcome screen, with the option to install, repair, or exit.
Both the install and repair options, when selected, denied that a hard drive
was present. Note: at this point, I had not yet made any changes to the
BIOS, reinstalled the hard drive, or in any way altered the system's
settings.

I'm not worried about losing any data, and would just as soon start from

scratch. What is the best advice to get my system to a point where XP will
recognize the hard drive, so that I can start rebuilding my system? What
specific settings should I make sure are used to install the hard drive?

 

[theric]

I'm not worried about losing any data, and would just as soon start from

scratch. What is the best advice to get my system to a point where XP will
recognize the hard drive, so that I can start rebuilding my system? What
specific settings should I make sure are used to install the hard drive?

Maybe your BIOS recognises hard drive, but it is connected to a ATA100
or 133 or S/ATA controller, say f.e. an Asus M/B with Promise RAID
controller, so WindowsXP does not have the driver for it.

If this fits your configuration, so you have two way to walk through:
1) Connect the drive to a standard IDE (those black connectors instead
of blue ones), then installa WinXP, install the other IDE controller
driver then get your hdd connected back to fastest controller

2) When WinXP initializes the installation, it gives you the
opportunity to give a storage controller driver pressing F6. Get the
driver onto a floppy disk (oemsetup.inf + some few other files), then
give it to the installation process(you MUST get a floppy, no cds or
browsing), it should then recognise your hdd.

Hope this helps...
Bye

theric