"setup did not find any HDDs installed..."

[corksil]

Hey I am trying to install XP on a gateway laptop for a friend, and I'm getting an error message when I boot off the CD. It says "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer. Make sure any HDDs are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program. Setup cannot continue. To quit setup, press F3."

There is a harddrive in the laptop, it hasn't magically disappeared since I put the CD in the optical drive.

Anyone seen this before? I need to get XP on this laptop asap... I messed around in the bios and none of the setting seemed to help - I'm still getting the error message. Could anyone help? Thanks so much!

[EzyStvy]

Guessing that the hdd is a SATA drive??
Look in the BIOS for an option to run it in IDE mode. That or you'll have to do the F6 option and plop in a floppy disk with the SATA drivers.

[sgtspector]

Going through the same problem with a friends Dimension 9100 as we speak. Downloaded drivers then I couldn't find a good floppy. Getting tired so I will deal with it tomorrow. It is most definitely the sata drive problem you are experiencing.

[corksil]

Yeh, a laptop that had to be reformated. And special drivers are needed to make the hard drive work. But the drivers can only be installed for that hard drive when it's actually in the computer it belongs in. (because the drivers will only install if they are in the machine they are written for.) Quite a dilemma... I took the hard drive out of the machine, then installed windoze XP, and downloaded the HDD drivers onto it. But I couldn't install them, because the chipset was wrong in my donor machine.

So if I can't boot off the hard drive because it won't work without the drivers... I need to boot off a different medium and install the HDD drivers without running off the HDD.

TinyXP on a flashdrive maybe?

Or the floppy disk method... But if I don't have a floppy drive, how do I do it?

[glc]

Go into the laptop bios and change the SATA controller to IDE mode.

The Gateway restore CD will have the correct drivers incorporated...........

[sgtspector]

I hate to hijack but will that work on a dell also? The owner can't find the original dell reinstall cd so I am using a retail winxp cd streamlined to sp3.

[glc]

Nope, see your other thread. All Dells have a recovery partition since 7/2004.

[sgtspector]

Thanks GLC

[corksil]

There are no settings in the bios regarding IDE/SATA mode. There was only one HDD related setting, and that didn't help. I couldn't get TinyXP to run off a flash drive either, but I solved the problem by installing Vista.

Why did installing vista make it magically work.. I'm guessing there are HDD drivers already built into Vista? The computer is fixed now, but for peace of mind, i'm still curious. thanks!

[glc]

Yes, Vista has native AHCI drivers. XP doesn't.