I Zero-ed the HDD, now XP won't install...

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I need help. I zero-ed out my HDD and I am attempting to re-install Windows XP Professional.

After the disk loads all of the initial files and tries to start XP, I get an error screen that says:


"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

Make sure any hard disk drives 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."

Needless to say, this is frustrating... especially because I KNOW there is a hard drive in the computer... the BIOS appears to be recognizing it, but XP setup thinks it is not present.

Does anyone have any clue why it would do that? I'd appreciate any help you can offer...
 
Zeroing the hd also kills the partitions. Although XP setup should see unallocated space and offer to create a partition for you. Is this a retail XP or some restore disk, it actually shouldn't matter both should see it.

What kind of drive? If its sata you may need to press F6 and install drivers for Windows to see it.
 
Ok... here's the story. I downloaded the SATA drivers from the Gateway website. I pressed F6 and chose a random SATA driver from the list. Does it matter which driver? I don't imagine it would...
 
Well it does matter. Sometimes the SATA driver set has drivers for 9x, ME, 2000, XP, 64 or 32bit, Server versions. You have to select the right one for your OS. Driver sets can also have various models supported, so you would have to choose the right OS, and the right model, if available.

Suppose you give us the list of choices for selecting a driver after pressing F6. Maybe we can help. That is, unless the "random" one you chose happens to work.
 
Well, I've tried a few of them. Despite the different names, each appears to load the same ".sys" file.

Everything seems to be going wrong. Now Windows setup it wants me to insert a disk labeled "Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver" into drive A and to Press Enter when I am ready.

Of course, I do not have this disk. I went to the intel site... and downloaded this:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...&OSFullName=Windows* XP Professional&lang=eng

I inserted the disk and pressed Enter. Nothing happened. Maybe I downloaded the wrong thing?
 
Intel Matrix Storage Driver?

Does anyone konw what is it... and how do I get the disk that XP is asking for? I should never have formatted the stupid HDD.

And what is RAID?
 
Ok, well here is what I'm thinking about after 10 seconds or so.

For one thing, you do NOT probably want the RAID driver. The RAID driver will be used, of course, if you have a RAID setup.
Of course if you want to learn all there is to know about RAID configurations, just search google, here is one random guide for "beginners" supposedly:
http://www.computingondemand.com/articles/begraid/raid_part-1.shtml

Basically RAID just lets you use multiple hard drives and configure them to act as "one" in various ways.
If you do NOT plan on using a RAID configuration, such as mirroring the drive, or striping, then you do NOT want the RAID driver which is what the Matrix Storage Manager seems to be. Meaning you just "might" have used the wrong driver during the F6 portion of setup.

Usually SATA driver disks have both RAID and non-RAID setups to choose from. Sometimes, confusingly enough, even if you don't use RAID, it will still be listed as a RAID driver.

Regardless, that screen (I think), is only asking for the same disk you used during F6 in the first place. If you remove the disk before setup is done, it will ask for the disk back later on. If it won't accept your disk, then it may be trying to load an invalid configuration (RAID).

I'm not sure what to tell you.
Tell us again what your hard drive configuration is, and what choices are in the menu on the disk you have. Maybe it's the wrong disk entirely? What is your motherboard and model number?

If Windows is already loaded and you don't want to format again, then we'll just have to sort out the driver situation.
 
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