XP Pro - Hard drive not found

  • Thread starter Thread starter Will C
  • Start date Start date
W

Will C

I'm building a computer, not buying a pre-made one. The
bios on the computer recognizes my western-digital 80MB
hard drive. When the XP Pro setup finally gets to the
part where it is going to start the install (after
checking my hardware, which last 10-15 minutes), it tell
me it can't detect a hard drive.

Why can the BIOS properly detect the hard drive but the XP
install doesn't?
 
Your BIOS can detect which drives are attached as Primary
or Secondary, then Master or Slave on each of those.

I'm guessing your drive is not set up as the Primary
Master, or if it is, it is not jumpered appropriately for
whatever else is sharing the bus as slave. Some HD must
be set as Only Drive if master without slave.

You may also want to examine the IDE Cable for both
condition and which connector your drive is plugged into.
 
Your motherboard either has Raid or UDMA controllers. XP
does not recognize these controllers (no inbox drivers)
so you will have to install them manually.
They are either on your mainboards cd or you may have to
go to the website to obtain them. Once you obtained them
and copied them to a floppy restart setup (boot form the
cd) and press F6 (when prompted) to install third party
raid/scsi controllers during boot up.
Point it to the floppy and let the drivers install.
Done and Done.
 
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