Error Message: Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system

I completely feel your pain. I have the same system and just fixed the same problem. Here's what I did. And by the way, 2 hours of tech support with Dell did nothing for me other than give me practice understanding Pakistan accents. I eventually stumbled on the solution myself w/o dell's help.

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your files backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.

Hope that helps!

Good luck!

I am having the same problem although I don't have the same options on SATA Operation. The only options I have are ON or OFF.

In case it matters I have a PowerEdge SC1420 that had Windows Server 2003 on it and I am trying to install Windows XP Pro instead.

anyone? I still can't figure this out

I have a Dell PowerEdge SC1420 with 3 Maxtor 74GB drives.

Right now the drives have been formatted and setup as RAID 5. When I try to install XP Pro I get a message that "Setup did not find any hard disk drive installed on your computer". Do I need to install 3rd party SATA drivers? If so I can't figure out which ones. I have searched the archives but nothing that I have read so far as worked.

I have a Dell PowerEdge SC1420 with 3 Maxtor 74GB drives.

Right now the drives have been formatted and setup as RAID 5. When I try to install XP Pro I get a message that "Setup did not find any hard disk drive installed on your computer". Do I need to install 3rd party SATA drivers? If so I can't figure out which ones. I have searched the archives but nothing that I have read so far as worked.

Yes, you'll likely need drivers. When you first beging the XP pre-install, it prompts you to "Press F6 to install 3rd party RAID drivers". You'll need to indeed press F6 and have your SCSI / SATA drivers on a floppy diskette.

To determine what drivers you need, you'll need to find out what controller you have. Your controller should have its own BIOS screen, which should list its model. Your RAID controller's BIOS screen should appear after your server's system BIOS screen.

I'm unsure what the PowerEdge SC1420 comes with by default and I'm sure it is customizable... But http://support.dell.com should list all of the drivers for all of the possible factory-installed options.

Top post, being trying to install WinXP on a Dimension 5150c for the last 90 mins!

This tip worked a treat.

Spotta

i have fought with 2 seperate sata drives for this dell and have always had problems. i did exactly what u said in the bios and hot damn it worked. windows installed instead of giving the no hd available error. if your still around. have u had any problems dual booting linux on the dell with a sata. thats what im doing next. thanks bro.

Thank you! It worked. I've been messing with this nonsense for a week now, and just found this posting... I registered say I really appreciate the help!! I also have a dell 8400, and knew if I called tech support, they would send me to india, and be of absolutly no help.

HI ALL,

Im in big trouble. I was going to format my hard drive of my notebook (alienware notebook if that matters) when i discovered that my system did not recognize it. This is really weird because i was using it a year now and it was working fine. The message i get is this "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system".

Please help me. The hard drive i have is a Hitachi travelstar 7k60.
I have tried updating the drivers of the drive but nothing. I also tried to figure out what to do through the bios but didnt manage to do anything.I am really desperate now.

I had the same problem and changed the settings in the system now its ok
thankx to everybody

what settings should i change?? my bios is a bit different so i don't quite get it....

Hi there, my first post and I really need some help. Was doing a clean install of Windows XP, deleted all partitions and it started to install. Then it started displaying a message that it couldn't install a particular file, so I skipped it but it said the same for every file. I quit the setup and went to start again but now whatever I select in setup, it displays "Setup did not find any installed hard drives on your system." Now I cant get computer past initial screen as it requests that I put in the CD before I can do anything.

Computer is from about 2001 - 2002 and it isnt a dell, in case that helps.

All help much, much appreciated

I have read many posts in this thread and searched several ways with no luck. I am trying to load the OEM SATA driver when using F6 at XP Pro setup but I do not have a floppy drive in the Compaq notebook. I have the controller but don't know how to make it available to setup. This all starts with the familiar error message. "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system"

I see mention of no floppy drive but can't locate the workaround.

Thank You for help or a link to the thread that help.

ldreisinger

I came across an easy fix for this. In the bios disable the setting for SATA support. XP will then detect the hard drive and install normally.

Tyler,

Thanks so much for the info! I was doing a google search for my Windows problem, and came across this post. I registered so I could thank you for the help.

-Pach

Tyler - I have to add my thanks to the many on here too. Your info saved my sanity. I had a big hard drive failure last week. Just bought a new Raptor and couldn't get BIOS to recognise the drive. Was absolutely lost but after I found your post and it worked like a charm - my new drive is being formatted as I type ;-)

I wanted to register to post a note of thanks for posting this info and greatly helping out me (and many others) where Dell could not!

Jason

Again - many thanks - your sensible suggestion saved us a whole night of hassle with a Compaq laptop.
Thank you

Hello! I do not currently own a dell computer, but I had a friend who made me one. At this moment I keep getting the "cannot find any hard drives" in the windows xp setup. My hard drive is a Seagate ST3250824AS 250 GB hard drive, and diskwriter does not work.

I looked for a SATA option in the BIOS, but I cannot find one. The only SATA option I can find is the one with the options of IDE and RAID. It was default set to RAID.

My other hard drive I installed to this comuter (maxtor) worked perfectly a year ago. I do not know how to solve this problem!

Please help me!

Thank you tyleryoungblood for your help, it worked on mine as well.

Have a good one, Jeff

on a HP workstation xw4300..cheers tyleryoungblood

All hail tyleryoungblood! I actually joined this site just to say THANK YOU! I have a neighbor's Dell with a hard drive that code 7ed.... He brought me a new hard drive to install and damn if I didn't fight and fight to get it to see the hard drive. It wasn't until I stumbled upon this forum that I found the solution. If anyone is having this issue with Dell not finding SATA drives. Do what Tyleryoungblood did! I was ready to hang myself! Bravo Tyler!

hi! i had the same problem and followed the advice tyleryounglbood gave above. and it worked :D.

however, after installing the OS, if i try to change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI, windows won't start up anymore. it blue screens, reboots, and takes me to the screen where i have the options of safe mode, last known good configuration, start up windows normally, etc. none of which work, they just do the same thing.

the only information given is "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this."

i did try to get the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver, v.5.0.1.1001, A01 from Dell's website here: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/type.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=DIM_P4_9100&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=8615, which says "at OS install time only", but again, i have no floppy drive, so i can't install it

if i can't rechange it to the factory setting, does it matter? i don't know much about computers so any advice you have is much appreciated. thank you!!

EDIT: i changed the SATA operation setting to: RAID AUTODETECT / ATA, and windows now boots for me :). so, this may be a really stupid question, but what is the difference between ATA and AHCI?

I have an issue still... I still can't get windows to boot normally. It boots to 2 options F1 to continue (which when chosen will boot just fine) and F2 for setup. Occaisionally I will get an options list where I have to choose safe mode or last known good etc etc... ALL I WANT is for Windows to boot NORMALLY. How do I set it to bypass the ANNOYING screen and boot directly into windows? I have fast or quick boot enabled in the BIOS. I have never in my life had such trouble adding a hard drive and installing an operating system EVER. Dell blows! Between the SATA drivers issue and the fact that the OEM cd doesn't give you the Ethernet Controller driver..... What a mess!

I used the combined mode and switched back to ATA (As Dell suggests) But still can't get it to boot normally. Whine whine whine! Am I missing a BIOS Option of some kind?

Hi. I'm having the same problem as in the original post of this thread. However, I'm running a Compaq Presario C301NR, and I don't think my drives are the same as yours. I took some photos. Hopefully someone can tell me which drives' settings I must change in order to erase the current partition, and create a new one. Thanks.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/jdeligiannis/IMG_0356.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/jdeligiannis/IMG_0358.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/jdeligiannis/IMG_0359.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/jdeligiannis/IMG_0360.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/jdeligiannis/IMG_0362.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/jdeligiannis/IMG_0363.jpg

I have the same problem with my Sony Vaio PCG-8W2L (VGN-AR230G in bios), it's a big one 17", maybe someone saw it before...

WINXP setup error message: 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.

PCG-8W2L (VGN-AR230G in bios) has no floppy and BIOS SATA Settings also, HDD: Fujitsu MHV2200BT, I did not touch any notebook parts. It just wont let me install windows xp eng sp2 from DOS, if somebody could help me to solve this unusual problem, I would be very happy!

Thank You for this post, i called and HP and they said we dont support it. If i didnt find this on the net i would of had to return this.

something as simple as changing a bios setting and they wouldnt tell me lol

I resolved my problem by installing new version of windows xp on The Reanimator Cd from www.philka.ru, there was SATA driver package. If someone need that winxp, please email me I will give you url to download it.

Tyler,
Your answer continues to please into 2007. I wasted 2 days with Intel SATA drivers before I read your answer. Made me register to reply.
Thanks again
Bob

Another thanks to Tyleryoungblood and LunaNM re: the [apparently very common] issue of reinstalling windows on a Dell Dimension 8400 w/ a SATA drive that Windows cannot find ... I followed your advice [after many hours of spinning my wheels], changed the BIOS setting to "combination" and get things working immediately.

I spend three hours trying to figure this out, and wehn I felt it was time to throw the computer, I went to GOOGLE, and this was the first result, and I ended up spending three minutes for what I couldn't to in three hours.

Hello All,

Very informative thread. Thanks to Tyleryoungblood and all others.

But those steps did not help me. PLEASE HELP! I have already spent two days trying to solve this problem.

Problem: I am trying to install Windows 2003 Server on WD 250GB SATA drive mounted and connected properly inside the PC. I boot from DVD/CD Rom drive. Windows 2003 Setup screen shows up. Windows setup goes through loading various files. It shows Welcome to Windows Setup screen. Gives three options 1) To install Windows press Enter 2) to repair windows press R 3) to quit setup F3. As soon as I press enter to install windows I get 'Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system.....etc.' message.

I tried changing various BIOS settings as below. I am pretty sure I tried most of the combinations:

BIOS recognizes the drive. It shows this drive on Disk Configuration option.
My BIOS does not have the options posted in this thread. I see following options under Drive Configuration menu of BIOS:

1) Use Automatic Mode <Enable/Disable>
2) Use Serial ATA <Enable/Disable> -- This option shows only when #1 is Disable
3) ATA/IDE Mode <Native/Legacy> - Native is default
4) Configure SATA as <IDE/RAID/AHCI> - RAID is default
5) S.M.A.R.T. <Enable/Disable> - Enable is default - Don't know what this means.
6) Primary Channel - <Enable/Disable> - This option is shown only if #1 (Use Automatic Mode) is disabled.

It also shows SATA Port 0 - through 3. Only Port 0 shows my drive WDC WD2500KS-00M - 250 GB ( This means BIOS recognizes this drive )

I do not have floppy drive. Is there any way to install drivers using USB flash or USB external HD? I have only one CD/DVD drive (which is used to install Windows 2003)

According to the posts on this thread, I am not clear if I need to have floopy drive just to get Windows 2003 installation going or I need to do that only if I need to change RAID configuration.

Also, I am not sure if this drive can support Windows 2003 server?It lists Windows XP/2000/98/Me. Don't know which drivers to use if needed.

This is a new drive.

My Hardware Configuration is:
I have Gateway 5404 - With Intel Pentium D 2.8 GHz. With Western Digital 250GB SATA-300 WD2500KSRTL (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=133) drive. Intel Motherboard D945GCL.

Don't know about BIOS manufacturer. BIOS Version: CF94510J.15A.0028.2006.1213.1629.

PLEASE HELP! I have already spent two days trying to solve this problem.

Thank you!

As I can see, you canīt install Windows 2003 in your Gateway PC īcause you get this message STOP: 0x0000006B (0x0000003A, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x00000000), or some like that, if this is so, then this may help you...

I tryed to install WinXP in my Gateway PC that has your same motherboard, but when started from my install cd it just stopped and it showed me the message I already told you. My PC came up with Win Vista preinstalled so the problem i thought it was the Bios that didnīt identify my hard disk. well, I tried so many ways to make the bios recognize my hard disk, including all you did, but i was wasting my time, the key was the program that was making a backup of the system from WinVista, and I found out when I saw this link from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330134/es it comes in spanish but also you may find it in the english version. The thing is to uninstall that program from WinVista, I canīt remmember whatīs the name but its pretty easy to identify it, Youīll know which one it is. So after that turn off the computer to complete the uninstall process and turn it back on to enter the Bios to configure this parameters in this way:

1) Use Automatic Mode <Disable>
2) Use Serial ATA <Enable>
3) ATA/IDE Mode <Native>
4) Configure SATA as <IDE>
5) S.M.A.R.T. <Disable> -
6) Primary Channel - <Enable>

After all this you may install any OS in your PC, because for security the program that backs up the WinVista protects the system with a hidden partition and if you uninstall that program it stops that protection.

To end just you need to enter back again to the Bios to set the options I mentioned to default, to get stable your system.

I hope it really worked to you, so long!!!

Edited by Moderator: Removed quote. There`s no need to quote the post directly above your own, unless you`re only replying to a specific section, in which case you would only quote that section. ;)

"That's nice. Now how the hell do I get my system working again?"
If you want to continue using the "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" setting in the BIOS of your shiny Dimension 8400, you *must* have a floppy drive. Without a floppy drive, you will not be able to load the driver that will allow Windows XP to communicate with your SATA controller and by extension, your SATA hard drives.

There should be a method to do this without a floppy drive, but as of right now it's only a theory in my mind and I don't know if it would actually work.



--Stryfe

This topic is definitely my problem. The only thing is I don't have a floppy drive. That's why I quoted stryfe, my question is if there is any solution for this? Otherwise i don't know how to solve this problem.

Thanks tim

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"



Tyler.. I LOVE YOU! I don't know you, but I love you. Big help. THANKS! I also just registered to give you my thanks. I think many of us appreciate it.

I completely feel your pain. I have the same system and just fixed the same problem. Here's what I did. And by the way, 2 hours of tech support with Dell did nothing for me other than give me practice understanding Pakistan accents. I eventually stumbled on the solution myself w/o dell's help.

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your files backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.

Hope that helps!

Good luck!


tyleryoungblood I'm calling for your help. I've read through most of the posts here, but I need some assistance on a Dell laptop. Last night my girlfriend was listening to music and she said a blue screen appeared with an error message. I didn't see the message, but I told her to restart. Now, every time the laptop is booting, on the www.dell.com header screen it says PBR 2.... failed .

Now, my question to you is how can I correct this matter without losing any data? There is a good amount of information needed for work and I need to get to it before I use the Dell provided ghost image and start from scratch.

I come to you because I see you have a really good track record on correcting this matter. If anyone else may provide some assistance on this matter, I'd greatly appreciate it too.

Thank you all,

Jon AKA Sever9

Hello,

I just finished building my own computer. I'm having the same problems. The boot priority is set correctly. The cables are connected good. The SATA is enabled, I even installed the Maxtor driver properly. I go to install Windows XP Professional and it says "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system."

Any help would be great.

Hi Friends,

This is my first post in techspot. I need your help badly. I am also facing similar problem with a slight change.

My laptop is HP laptop. I am trying to install Win 2000 server edition. But it is not allowing me to proceed further setup after clicking the Enter for proceed.
I am getting the following error.
SETUP DIDNOT FIND ANY HARDDISK DRIVE 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 MANUFACTURAL SUPPLIED DIAGNOSTIC OR SETUP PROGRAM.

Please help me out in this issue. I didnt have any floppy drive.

I would thankful to you if you solve out this issue.

Thanks in Advance.

JS

I Think I have Solution For You jyothee :grinthumb
First Thing Go to this Link (http://www.hwinfo.com/) And Download this Program HWiNFO32
Thin Installed In your Computer To Find Out what Is the Model Of Your Chipsit
Then Go To This Link (http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/cs-015001.htm) Of Intel And Download The Driver For The Floppy Disk After That But The Windows In The Cd And Win The Installation Start Pres F6 And Insert The Floppy Disk

Only if I read this thread earliear it would have saved me a week of frustration. I tried everything and eventually found combination mode worked!

Now my question is will Changing the setup to auto detect RAID have any effect on the software I installed in combination mode? I dont want to go through the headache of reinstalling all my software and drivers.

Hi, I have the same problem that the computer dont recognized the Hard Drive is a DELL Dimesion 8400 but when I do the set up with windows she tell me that the setup cannot access this disk, she dont allow me to istall or Delete or Create a partition. It could be the hard drive or the IDE Cable this is the first time that my computer crash with that, but since a I bought it in Nov 04 and crash for first time a year later and the for 16 times more....but not with this error or horror!!..please help me........Do I have to buy a new Hard Drive?

As for the hard drive, Make sure all cables are securely fastened. Also , with caution you may try to feel vibration from the hard drive to make sure its powered up and spinning.

If your talking about same problem weve all been having just read the reply from first post of this thread, tyleryoungblood and follow his/her instruction.

i have the same problem too
and i suck at computer, so i don't know how to check the drives or whatever it is

and i read tyleryoungblood's post
for the set up part
i can't find the first part
i don't get it
???
--->
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

I completely feel your pain. I have the same system and just fixed the same problem. Here's what I did. And by the way, 2 hours of tech support with Dell did nothing for me other than give me practice understanding Pakistan accents. I eventually stumbled on the solution myself w/o dell's help.

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your files backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.

Hope that helps!

Good luck!

How do we do it for a Laptop. I recently bought a SONY VGN-FZ140E/B with Vista Home Premium Preloaded. I tried to install XP Pro by formatting the HDD. I got the same Hard Disk Drive not found Error.
Laptop doesnt have internal Floppy drive. Can it be done with external floppy drive or any other approach?

Capacity: 200GB9
Speed-3: 4200rpm
Interface: Serial ATA

Thanks,
Krishna.

Hi Friends,

This is my first post in techspot. I need your help badly. I am also facing similar problem with a slight change.

My laptop is HP laptop. I am trying to install Win 2000 server edition. But it is not allowing me to proceed further setup after clicking the Enter for proceed.
I am getting the following error.
SETUP DIDNOT FIND ANY HARDDISK DRIVE 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 MANUFACTURAL SUPPLIED DIAGNOSTIC OR SETUP PROGRAM.

Please help me out in this issue. I didnt have any floppy drive.

I would thankful to you if you solve out this issue.

Thanks in Advance.

JS

any luck???

Thanks,
krishna.

Hello Friends,
I am in need of your help.
As mentioned earlier I bought the SONY VGN-FZ140E/B and while trying to install XP Pro, had the Hard disk drive not found error.

I am not sure if I can use an external (USB powered) floppy disk and supply the drivers you mentioned.
Please help me in solving this issue.

Help greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Thulasi

Give it a try. You may be able to boot from a USB powered floppy depending on your system configuration. See if your bios allows you to turn that option (booting from usb devices) on/off. If you can, make sure booting from USB is turned on and see if it will boot from a USB floppy then. I know some servers can boot from a USB device, but I've never tried to do it from a desktop. Make sure that the USB boot sequence is set high in the que (i.e. set it so the computer tries to boot from USB devices before it tries to boot from CD, Floppy, or HD, if it allows you to change this setting). Other than that I'm not sure if I can be of any help to you since I'm not all that familiar with Sony's setup.

Good Luck!
Tyler Youngblood

Hello Friends,
I am in need of your help.
As mentioned earlier I bought the SONY VGN-FZ140E/B and while trying to install XP Pro, had the Hard disk drive not found error.

I am not sure if I can use an external (USB powered) floppy disk and supply the drivers you mentioned.
Please help me in solving this issue.

Help greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Thulasi

i have the same problem too
and i suck at computer, so i don't know how to check the drives or whatever it is

and i read tyleryoungblood's post
for the set up part
i can't find the first part
i don't get it
???
--->
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

These steps are referring to the system setup/bios settings in your computer. If you've never entered your setup screen before (and feel lucky if you never have or have never needed to) than these steps are no doubt foreign to you. Refer to your computers manual or other web resources on how to properly modify your system settings. For my system I had to press F2 while booting to get the setup screen to load. Other systems may be different. Hope that helps.

Tyler

Only if I read this thread earliear it would have saved me a week of frustration. I tried everything and eventually found combination mode worked!

Now my question is will Changing the setup to auto detect RAID have any effect on the software I installed in combination mode? I dont want to go through the headache of reinstalling all my software and drivers.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but if you're asking if you will lose your data if you change raid settings (from Raid 0 to Raid 1 for example), the answer is yes. You will need to reformat your drives if you choose to change Raid settings. Wikipedia explains Raid setup differences pretty well here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_0

If your asking if you will lose data by switching from combination mode back to your previous mode, I think you will be safe - however, PC's have 1 truism, anything can go wrong at anytime :)

Hope that helps.

Tyler

I am having the same issue, I needed to upgrade from
SP1 to SP2 to upgrade Windows Media Player 10 to 11. I attempted this, it was not successful, only upon logging off the OS and into another account did I see that there were issues.

Blue screen of death Unable to locate component C0000135. I have gotten pretty far w/ Google and this web site, thank you for everyone who has documented these instances, and yes I am very fluent in DELL foreign language as well. I have changed my BIOS as below or at least tried to. The problem that I have is that I so not have the option for SATA Operation, my option is;

Drive Configuration
SATA Raid
Options or On or Off only, not combination

the solution below is not applying to my situation
I do not have a floppy drive

Solution applied is below, does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your files backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.

Hello Friends,
I am in need of your help.
As mentioned earlier I bought the SONY VGN-FZ140E/B and while trying to install XP Pro, had the Hard disk drive not found error.

I am not sure if I can use an external (USB powered) floppy disk and supply the drivers you mentioned.
Please help me in solving this issue.

Help greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Thulasi

Hello Thulasi,

I also have a sony vaio vgn-fz140e preinstalled with vista premium. I also got the same "hard disk not recognized " error message when trying to install xp. Have you solved this problem?

Joel

SATA will not run in XP without a raid driver. Intel configures it's boards with a software layer that presents the HDD to XP as an IDE drive. "AHCI" the native mode for a single SATA drive can only be accomplished by Vista, (thus speaks Intel). I configured my Intel G965 to SATA mode "run as IDE" it picks them up the first time every time. The software abstraction layers provided by Maxtor's "Max Blast" and the like, probably accomplish the same thing.

Tyler you're a life saver!! I've been scatching my head over this one for longer than I care to admit. Your solution got me reinstalling Windows on this Dell and I REALLY appreciate it!!

Okay...this SONY VGN-FZ140E/B is really getting to me. I'm trying to install XP/VISTA dual boot for a friend and Im getting the same old error everyone keeps getting "HD not found". I've had this problem before with my girlfriends HP DV6000 something...but I could fix this in the bios in seconds. Sony bios are so lame...the only thing you can do is check to see what time it is!

I dont have a USB floppy, but it does show you can boot just about ANY usb device you have available. How do I get this to work (lets say with a USB thumb drive) and where can I get these drivers for RAID?