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

Here's the link to the Sony support/download for your laptop. The AHCI Sata drivers are listed : http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNFZ140E&UpdateType=Everything

Hello D_LAN

I'm trying to do the same vista/xp dual boot on my sony vaio xgn-fz140e. I was able to partition the disk to get it ready for xp but couldn't get passed the "hard disk not found" error when trying to install xp pro. I already have the ata/sata driver ready from:

(http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=2101&OSFullName=Windows*+XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go%21)

but don't have a floppy disk to load the drivers during xp install. Tried many of the tips in this thread but haven't ben successful yet.

joel

Hello D_LAN

I'm trying to do the same vista/xp dual boot on my sony vaio xgn-fz140e. I was able to partition the disk to get it ready for xp but couldn't get passed the "hard disk not found" error when trying to install xp pro. I already have the ata/sata driver ready from:

(http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=2101&OSFullName=Windows*+XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go%21)

but don't have a floppy disk to load the drivers during xp install. Tried many of the tips in this thread but haven't ben successful yet.

joel

Joel I got it - This took me like 6 + hours to figure out but I did it.

(note - I did all these things on a different computer that already has XP)



Step 1 - Search google for a nLite, its an awesome program that allows you to make a custom XP install disk. (slipstream)

Step 2 - Download drivers for the 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller ... I got them here http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/112633. The Sony website DOES NOT HAVE THEM...only an .exe for vista.

Step 3 - Now you can start making the custom XP disk. First off put your normal xp disk in your PC, and open it using explore. Make a new folder on your desktop and copy every file from that CD into this new folder. Next you install the nLite program and open it. Hit the next button, and at the top you'll see a place for finding the windows install folder (the one you just made), so hit browse and point it there. Hit next to skip the next box. When you get to the part with the list of things you can do, select drivers and bootable ISO. After you click next, you'll need to insert the drivers you downloaded. (I had to unzip the drivers into another folder on the desktop) Im sure you can figure out how to point it to the correct driver...like I said its the 82801 HEM/HBM one for mobile ICH8M (and leave it in textmode - NOT PNP). Go through the rest of the steps, it'll make a bootable ISO image somewhere on your computer and then use your favorite CD burning program to make your custom XP disk.


HAVE FUN!



PS- Im using this guide for dual boot :

http://www.syschat.com/dual-boot-vista-xp-vista-already-1946.html

Thank you D_LAN for sharing your solution. I will try it.

Joel

I'm also having the same problem that everyone else is having.

I have a DELL Vostro 1500 (just got it). It came installed with Windows Vista and I did not want it with Vista so I decided to format and install XP instead.

I followed the instructions stated here on changing to ATA from ACHI and the installation worked fine (without doing this it didn't detect a hard drive).

However, after installtion, before booting into windows for the first time, I changed the settings back to ACHI and windows would not boot...I received the blue screen error that everyone is talking about.

How exactly do I go about fixing this with ACHI. I do not have a floppy drive on this laptop so I can not put the RAID drivers on there to install during windows installation and without them I guess it does not work.

Has anybody found a solution...perhaps using a USB jump drive???


THANKS

As people have been saying XP won't run a SATA drive in native mode, ACHI. So run the drive as IDE. SATA 2 3Gbs is a terribly impressive spec, but it's just sales b******t. Any hard drive can't even write as fast as PATA can supply information. If you're not going to raid the drive, (and it's a notebook so it likely only has 1 drive, and possibly only 5400RPM). Why not run it as IDE and get on with your life? A good, good hard drive will put down (maybe) 60 MBs per sec. ATA 133 is 133 MBs per sec, more than double the ability of any drive to read and write

Ok, I figured out how to do it on a laptop/machine without a floppy drive.

First, you download the drivers from your manufacturer. For me, I have a DELL Vostro 1500 so I downloaded the drivers from DELL (they are known as "Intel Matrix Storage Manager - Notebooks" for all laptops I believe). Make sure to extract the drivers to a folder for later use.

Then, as mentioned previously in this post by the poster D_LAN, download the nLite program. By the way, thanks D_LAN for the post because without your information I would be stuck as well.

Take your windows cd and put it into your drive.

Start up nLite and open up the windows files that are located on your cd, when nLite prompts you to do so.

On the next option, select to modify drivers and also select to make a bootable iso file.

Under the next option, when it asks you to add drivers, direct it to the folder you unzipped the drivers to earlier and select all of them to be added (holding shift and selecting the first and last in a list will select all between as well).

Finally, make an .iso file and name it whatever you want.

Now you can burn the .iso file to cd/dvd using any cd/dvd burning program you have (nero, etc.). Make sure to open the burning program and hit "open" under file then open or just open somewhere. After hitting open, direct it to the ISO file and burn it.



What nLite does is modify existing windows installation files to include anything you want (in this case drivers) or exclude anything you don't want so that they are accessible through CD to windows installation.


Now, restart the computer and enable ACHI. Next, boot the computer with the new windows cd/dvd that you burnt in the drive. When it comes to the "press F6 to load SCSI....drivers" press F6 and then when it comes to the later screen that asks you to either insert a floppy in or hit enter, hit enter. Now it will obtain the drivers from the CD/DVD that your burnt and you will not need the floppy.



Good Luck

I am having the same problem, any input??
Thanks
I have a three month old Dell Dimension 8400. 3.0 GHZ P4, 1 Gig Ram and a 160 gig SATA Hard Drive. When I got the computer I used the files and transfer (PC Relocator) utility. And had a bunch of unwanted extras that came with it. I'm having a Satellite Internet system installed and they wanted a clean install of windows XP. So I opened the owner’s manual and got out the reinstallation disk and the problems began. By the way Dell tech support's only response has been to say gee that's not right, and would send a tech sometime after Christmas. Anyway heres step by step what I did.
I boot to the Dell reinstallation disk. The windows setup screen appears and loads files. The next screen says welcome to setup and offers three options. 1-to setup XP press enters. 2 To repair XP press R 3 to exit without installing XP press F3
I press enter and the following message comes up. Setup did not find any hard disk installed in your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected. And any disk related configuration is correct.ect. Press F3 to quit. It dose this if I try repair also.
Dell had me check the connections to the HD and Motherboard. They’re good. And debug the hard drive. No luck. Everything worked fine until I put in the reinstallation disk.
Any help would be welcome.

Really do appreciate the help. Your solution worked perfectly. Thank you, tyleryoungblood. Good job.

[

Hi Everyone. I'm new to your website, not new to computers. I was working on my sons computer. It is a Dell Optiplex GX150. His computer shut down and came back with an error "disk read error" I found tyler's solution and I think it would work for this computer but when I enter under F2 I see a "Primary Drive" it is the Hard drive and set to auto. On Tyler's post

"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"
I only see a "primary drive" I don't see anything "sata" and I don't find anywhere to change the sata operation to combination. I have gone through each item selection to make sure. What obvious step am I missing?
Thanks

Hello!

Sir! I hav the same problem, please help me.. I hav a HP Compaq Pavillon D2000.. Im getting the same blue screen windows xp home edition error.. It says Hard Disk isnt installed.. the same error! and also i tried F6 also, but the thing is about the Floppy Disk, there is no floppy drive and i dont hav the support disk also! please help me anyone!

I was having problems getting an XP installation on my Dimesion 9100 to recognize my hard disk. Thanks to Vicksun's post i was able to get the install finished..

Thanks..!

A highly useful solution - I only lost 2 hours trying to figure it out myself until I thought to search it... I had noticed the bios setting but was scared off by the warning....

Very much appreciated and it made me register for TechSpot!!!

George

thanxs buddy, the solution provided for changing SATA config worked

another thanks to tyleryoungblood for solving this and making it so i can find it by just searching in google! all i actually had to do was change from "AHCI" to "ATA" in my bios and all was good (and i have no floppy). i have an inspiron 1420 that came with ubuntu from dell. thanks again, you're my hero for the week.

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!


sir Tyler, i have the same problem with this, does this operation only for Dell? or it will also hold through to other computers?

thanks for your time

It turned out that I was having a somewhat different problem than what most of people mentioned here, but hey! I am still going to post my solution :) Maybe it will help someone...

Hardware: Dell Optiplex GX620. A SATA drive with Windows XP (boot); and an IDE DVD-ROM (Toshiba).

Symptoms: IDE devices are not detected AT ALL. (Neither DVD loaders nor other IDE HDDs). Everything looks fine in BIOS and in Device manager: IDE controller is there, but the drives/loaders are not detected in either.

Solution: There is a Maintenance->Load Defaults option in my machine's BIOS. Use it and then reboot the system. Besides the obvious part of resetting all BIOS settings, it actually forces reconfiguration of the IDE controller. After that my IDE devices were detected.

great man. this thread really worked for me....

Hi guys! I have been having a torrid time trying to solve the same problem. I have tried to download the AHCI.zip file with the drivers but the link seems to be broken as Winrar throws errors on extraction. Anyone still with the drivers?

I am having a similary issue when trying to run setup. I have an XPS systems about 2 year old running XP Pro. The problem i am having with the original post to CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION" is that I either do not have this option or cannot find it. The options on my SATA drives (1 partitioned to 2) are OFF, ON, RAID On. This is a RAID device so when I select ON i get the following; "Error Loading operating system". If i run from the CD when i get to through to the Setup Screen I again get the message about no hard disk drives installed on my computer.

Hey, I have a Compaq, I had xp media on it. It ran out of trial (i lost key) I got a hold of xp Pro, and i want to install it, when i go to install from disc, it gives me
"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system"
So i go into bios, im running Phoenixbios first of all, no floppy drive so i cant get RAID, can anyone help me figure out how to fix this?

I have the same problem with my daughters Dell Inspiron 1501 got it last year Christmas now out of now where the Hard drive makes noises it sounds like a cd is running and when i go to Bios i do not see SATA every time i turn the computer on it takes about 2 minutes before anything shows up for me to hit F2 or F12 and after that again about 2 minutes so when i get in to Bios in Main where is says Fixed Disk there it says NONE when i try to go to advance or security the computer freeze up on me and i can do nothing else. i do not have a Floppy Drive. If someone could help would be nice.
Here are the info on the Laptop.
Dell Inspiron 1501
Windows Xp Home Edition SP2
Thank You for your help

Hey all,

Some modifications for use on the Dell Inspiron 1720 to place XP on it.

In BIOS, under OnBoard Devices:
1. Modify the Flush Cache Module to say "Disabled"
2. Modify the SATA Operation from "AHCI" to "ATA"
3. Reboot with your XP CD.

It will now see all the drives and allow you to install XP on it.

HEHEHEHEHEH


Man You are my Hero "tyleryoungblood" , been so helpful bro

BTW It been hard last night today it's a wide smile on my face

thx again bro

Hi all,
I'm have the same error:
"setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on you computer"
on my Dell PowerEdge 840

The BIOS options are different that what's been posted previously.
Is set the
Diskette Drive A: to 3.5 inch.... from 'NOT INSTALLED'
SATA Controller: to ATA from OFF but I still can't get this to work...
SATA Port 0: AUTO
SATA Port 1: AUTO

I'm trying to reinstall MS SBS 2003

Any Ideas??

Please help

we have the same problem, but the fix that we tried that is listed here as put us deeper in a hole. our system is a dell8400 and it now will not even see the cd-rom drive when we boot. it sees is in the setup/cmos, but we just get a blinking cursor when we try to boot to the installation cd.

we tried setting it back to the original defaults it was at before, and it still doesn't see the cdrom drive.

any ideas what to do from here? we are just baffled...

obviously we have no floppy drive, so no way to get new drivers on???

any information would be greatly appreciated.

thank you.

ok, just for the record-, what stryfe wrote earlier in this thread with the dowload from dell website worked for us. we got an external usb floppy drive, loaded the file, and hit F6 during setup , and loaded the files, and it could then see the hard drive after that.

thank you stryfe! i owe ya one!

Whenever I try to install a fresh copy of windows I get the "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer".

I am using a Dell Inspiron 1150, the hard drive is a Hitachi Travelstar 30 GB, and I have a USB floppy drive. I am not sure where to get the driver for this hard drive, can any of you help me please? If you need any more information, I'll tell you what ever you need to know.

the dell website for the floppy disk that stryfe had suggested? and use the F6 button? that worked for us... i recommend trying that... so when windows asks for a 3rd part scsi driver (even though you aren't loading scsi) it will direct the setup to your floppy and load those drivers, so it can see the hard drive.

good luck

I downloaded the thing Stryfe suggested, and booted from the CD, used the F6 button, and it gave me two choices, RAID or AHCI. First I chose AHCI because that is what he used, and that did not worked. Next I started over again, then instead of using AHCI I chose to use RAID, and that did not work also. Sorry about all this.

Forget the floppy... nLite is the answer!

Use the nLite freeware application to integrate the necessary SATA drivers into a new bootable XP CD.

I just successfully did a fresh XP install on an Acer Power F5 with SATA HDD. I downloaded the SATA drivers and used nLite to integrate them into a new bootable CD which I burned and then used for the install.

PS: I tried to include direct links but as this is my virgin post, I wasn't allowed... so you'll have to use the power of the Google.

Sorry about this, but the only problem I think I am having is finding the correct drivers for the hard drive, the drive is a:

Hitachi Travelstar
Model: IC25N030ATMR04-0
4200 RPM
5V 1.0A DC
30 GB
ATA/IDE

sorry, but I have looked at some sites, but I can't find it anywhere? maybe one of you guys might have better luck. Please and Thank You.

amazing post, simple solution for a head eating problem, u really rule.....

Hey all. I am new to this forum, but I have this problem, and i desperately need help:

I started getting the "unmountable boot volume" error. So I put the XP cd in to repair it and it then said that it couldnt find my hard drive at all. So I called a couple local computer techs and they said that my hard drive could be dead (which was some devastating news). So I tried a couple of other methods to fix the problem, and still I get no solution. So now i just wonder if there is a way to get my files and media from my original hard drive. Silly me, I didnt back up anything, so I would hate to lose it, some files are not replaceable.

anyway, thanx

Dell Dimension 8400
P4 3.2GHz
512MB RAM
SATA 80Gig HD (stock)
CD-ROM & DVD-R/W drives

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.

You are too awesome, this fixed my problem as well!!

This thread is years old and still helping people. I worked on a HP Pavilion dv1000 - and these steps (from the early pages) work just fine.

Just thought I share that. Good post Tyler.

- Can

I have something that may extend the life of this thread...

Dell Dimension 9150.

Was fine until updated Norton Internet Security to 2008 and did a disk scan.

Then (an maybe the drive decide to go bad at this time) there is grinding noise and seems to be in a loop during boot.

The attached shows the message details before F1 key to continue message.

Thanks,
Grindstaff

I have a three month old Dell Dimension 8400. 3.0 GHZ P4, 1 Gig Ram and a 160 gig SATA Hard Drive. When I got the computer I used the files and transfer (PC Relocator) utility. And had a bunch of unwanted extras that came with it. I'm having a Satellite Internet system installed and they wanted a clean install of windows XP. So I opened the owner’s manual and got out the reinstallation disk and the problems began. By the way Dell tech support's only response has been to say gee that's not right, and would send a tech sometime after Christmas. Anyway heres step by step what I did.
I boot to the Dell reinstallation disk. The windows setup screen appears and loads files. The next screen says welcome to setup and offers three options. 1-to setup XP press enters. 2 To repair XP press R 3 to exit without installing XP press F3
I press enter and the following message comes up. Setup did not find any hard disk installed in your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected. And any disk related configuration is correct.ect. Press F3 to quit. It dose this if I try repair also.
Dell had me check the connections to the HD and Motherboard. They’re good. And debug the hard drive. No luck. Everything worked fine until I put in the reinstallation disk.
Any help would be welcome.

you can try the following.. it worked for me
Resolving "Setup did not find any hard disk drives" during Windows XP Installation
One of the most popular topics among our readers is installing Windows XP on your new Windows Vista computer - sometimes for compatibility reasons, but also because a lot of people just don't like Vista very much.
The problem that people keep running into left and right is getting to the point where XP starts to install and getting the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". This error happens because your new computer has a storage controller that isn't supported natively in XP, usually an SATA (Serial ATA) controller.

If you don't have a floppy drive in your computer (who does anymore), then you'll need to use a process called slip-streaming to integrate the storage drivers into your XP installation CD.
It should go without saying that this is an advanced topic, so proceed with caution.
Creating a Custom XP Install
We'll use a software called nLite to create a new XP install cd, so you'll first need to download and install it. Once it starts up, you'll be prompted for your Windows installation, so you'll want to click the Browse button.

First you'll be prompted for the "Windows installation", which really means your XP install CD. Find it and select the root of the installation, and then click OK to go to the next dialog.

Next you'll be prompted on where you want to save the temporary files used during the slip-streaming process. I chose to create a new directory and called it XPISO, but you can put it wherever you'd like. I just recommend to use a new directory.

nLite will copy all the necessary files off the XP installation and into the temporary folder. When it's done, you'll see all the information on which version it is.

Hit the next button until you come to this screen, where you can select what options you want. Select "Drivers" and then "Bootable ISO".

Side note: You can select any of the other options if you'd like. nLite will let you bundle updates, set tweaks or automatically remove components from the installation, but that all goes beyond the scope of this article.
Hit the next button until you get to the screen for selecting drivers. If you click the Insert button, you can choose between adding a single driver or adding a folder of drivers. Since we'll just be loading a single driver, you can choose that option, but you might want to first read the section below about finding drivers for XP.

Browse to the directory where you extracted the driver files, and then select Open. Note that it doesn't really matter which of the *.inf files you choose, because it will select all files in the folder anyway.

nLite will prompt you to select your driver. If you don't know which exact one it is, you can either use Device Manager in Vista to find the exact model, or you can just select all of them. Just be careful not to select a 64-bit driver if you are using 32-bit, or the wrong OS version.

I would recommend including both Storage and Network drivers, as those are the most common drivers that are missing in XP.
Once you proceed to the next screen, now we can finally finish the process. You can choose to directly burn the cd here, or you can select Create Image to create an ISO file that you can burn to a CD using whatever burning tool you have.
Note: If you chose to create an ISO, make sure to use the "Make ISO" button before you click Next.




At this point you can burn the ISO image to a CD, and then start your XP installation process.
Finding Drivers for XP
The best place to search for drivers for your hardware is at the manufacturer's support website. The only problem is that almost every manufacturer seems to distribute their drivers in floppy disk image form, even though the computer they are for doesn't have a floppy drive. Guess nobody has alerted them to get with the program.
We can still extract the drivers using an application called WinImage. Let's run through a quick example… Here you can see the Intel SATA controller driver for my HP computer.

I downloaded and ran the executable, which extracted a file called f6flpy32.exe into a temporary directory. Don't bother trying to run this one, because it'll just prompt you for a floppy drive.

So how to get the drivers out of this file? There are a few options that you can try, depending on how the manufacturer packed the files.
• You can use Winimage to extract them, which is a shareware software, but you can use it during the trial period for free.
• You can try and use WinRar to extract the file. In many instances this will extract a *.flp file, which you can mount in a VMware virtual machine or potentially with some ISO mounting software.
• Some drivers will allow you to automatically extract into a directory. You'll have to try it and see what happens.
• Other methods? If you've got other ideas, leave them in the comments and I'll add them to this list.
Here's the list of files that Winimage can handle, which is quite a lot.

Start WinImage and then open the file, and you should see the contents. Just extract them to a folder, preferably with a useful name so you can remember it later.

Good luck with your installation…

guys try the following it worked for me... good luck:wave:

Resolving "Setup did not find any hard disk drives" during Windows XP Installation
One of the most popular topics among our readers is installing Windows XP on your new Windows Vista computer - sometimes for compatibility reasons, but also because a lot of people just don't like Vista very much.
The problem that people keep running into left and right is getting to the point where XP starts to install and getting the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". This error happens because your new computer has a storage controller that isn't supported natively in XP, usually an SATA (Serial ATA) controller.

If you don't have a floppy drive in your computer (who does anymore), then you'll need to use a process called slip-streaming to integrate the storage drivers into your XP installation CD.
It should go without saying that this is an advanced topic, so proceed with caution.
Creating a Custom XP Install
We'll use a software called nLite to create a new XP install cd, so you'll first need to download and install it. Once it starts up, you'll be prompted for your Windows installation, so you'll want to click the Browse button.

First you'll be prompted for the "Windows installation", which really means your XP install CD. Find it and select the root of the installation, and then click OK to go to the next dialog.

Next you'll be prompted on where you want to save the temporary files used during the slip-streaming process. I chose to create a new directory and called it XPISO, but you can put it wherever you'd like. I just recommend to use a new directory.

nLite will copy all the necessary files off the XP installation and into the temporary folder. When it's done, you'll see all the information on which version it is.

Hit the next button until you come to this screen, where you can select what options you want. Select "Drivers" and then "Bootable ISO".

Side note: You can select any of the other options if you'd like. nLite will let you bundle updates, set tweaks or automatically remove components from the installation, but that all goes beyond the scope of this article.
Hit the next button until you get to the screen for selecting drivers. If you click the Insert button, you can choose between adding a single driver or adding a folder of drivers. Since we'll just be loading a single driver, you can choose that option, but you might want to first read the section below about finding drivers for XP.

Browse to the directory where you extracted the driver files, and then select Open. Note that it doesn't really matter which of the *.inf files you choose, because it will select all files in the folder anyway.

nLite will prompt you to select your driver. If you don't know which exact one it is, you can either use Device Manager in Vista to find the exact model, or you can just select all of them. Just be careful not to select a 64-bit driver if you are using 32-bit, or the wrong OS version.

I would recommend including both Storage and Network drivers, as those are the most common drivers that are missing in XP.
Once you proceed to the next screen, now we can finally finish the process. You can choose to directly burn the cd here, or you can select Create Image to create an ISO file that you can burn to a CD using whatever burning tool you have.
Note: If you chose to create an ISO, make sure to use the "Make ISO" button before you click Next.




At this point you can burn the ISO image to a CD, and then start your XP installation process.
Finding Drivers for XP
The best place to search for drivers for your hardware is at the manufacturer's support website. The only problem is that almost every manufacturer seems to distribute their drivers in floppy disk image form, even though the computer they are for doesn't have a floppy drive. Guess nobody has alerted them to get with the program.
We can still extract the drivers using an application called WinImage. Let's run through a quick example… Here you can see the Intel SATA controller driver for my HP computer.

I downloaded and ran the executable, which extracted a file called f6flpy32.exe into a temporary directory. Don't bother trying to run this one, because it'll just prompt you for a floppy drive.

So how to get the drivers out of this file? There are a few options that you can try, depending on how the manufacturer packed the files.
• You can use Winimage to extract them, which is a shareware software, but you can use it during the trial period for free.
• You can try and use WinRar to extract the file. In many instances this will extract a *.flp file, which you can mount in a VMware virtual machine or potentially with some ISO mounting software.
• Some drivers will allow you to automatically extract into a directory. You'll have to try it and see what happens.
• Other methods? If you've got other ideas, leave them in the comments and I'll add them to this list.
Here's the list of files that Winimage can handle, which is quite a lot.

Start WinImage and then open the file, and you should see the contents. Just extract them to a folder, preferably with a useful name so you can remember it later.

Good luck with your installation…

I created an account as well as Pachelbel9 to thank you and Stryfe for your posts. This is one thing I love about the IT community. That is, we don't know everything about everything and so when we come across something we haven't seen before there's people out there who have and post their solutions online.

Thanks again guys.

I have the same problem. My pc doesn't have a floppy drive, so what should I do? When I try to install Vista I have no problems, but when I install Xp I get the same error as you guys. I have an Acer, can't turn nothing on, simple BIOS settings.

Any solutions for this?

tyleryoungblood

thank you mate. wanted to boot with a win 2003 svr cd to make a clean install but I couldn't. I even reformated and deleted everything with killdisk but to no avail. rearranged the boot sequence still nothing. Then I tried your simple instructions voila! I got rid of my Vista ultimate finally.

I just love the freedom of having full control of deleting, reformating and reinstalling as I wish.

Thanks again.

I am having a similiar problem, but my options are not exactly whats described so far I don't think. I am working on a laptop for a friend. Its a Toshiba Portege. It came with Vista, but he wanted XP Tablet edition. I am getting the same error about not finding a hard drive. My options under system setup and drives are

Built in HDD = Serial ATA Port0
Select Bay = Primary IDE(1F0H/IRQ14)

And the only RAID option I have is

Create State
Built-in HDD =1RAID-0

It has XP PRO now, I installed that before I knew he needed the tablet edition. I installed XP Pro fine, but going to tablet edition I got the error?

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!

Wow! I spent the whole day troubleshooting this problem. I post on this sight and another. nobody new the answer. and then I found this post. Thanks Tyler. you saved me!!! Architecture Student in finals with PC problems!

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 just wasted over an hour on the phone with Dell "tech support" only to find your post when I hung up. I got nowhere with Dell, as usual, and your suggestion worked immediately. I am a happy camper and I thank you!

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!

Thanks for the great information! Worked like a charm for me

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!


thank you so much Tyleryoungblood! Your post helped me get my hard drive working again after the computer had fallen over and got a blank blue screen of death which, after rebooting, caused the disk read error. Nothing I tried would get the disk to be recognized...but your post fixed it! I had an incredibly important file on there that I was able to recover and is now backed up on my web server:)

Thanks!

yeap definatelly this work for a Compaq presario C500...i went to the Bios setup...and i desabled the SATA feautures in the hard drive...so that was it..and i finally was able to install my new OS....THANKS...!

For those of you who are not finding the settings that Tyler described (like me), all you need to do is go into "Drive Configuration." Set SATA RAID to Off and two more options will pop up below it. Set the top one "Master" to Auto. Mine then came up as a mystery drive. Exit setup and save changes. You should now be able to continue your installation. Thank you Tyler, even if your screens are a bit different you put me on the right track to fix my machine. Now maybe I can sell it since I have a far superior laptop now.

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 you know when the Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON? And its doing this with a couple hard drives I have and some will install windows then not start. please someone help. im hopfully posting this somewhere someone can help me..

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!

Just today my wife had bought me a new laptop for my birthday with Windows Vista. I have decided to format the laptop and install XP instead but disaster happened, I got the Error that there was no hard disk. So Vista it is what to do, But when I restarted the Laptop vista was gone!!!!!! My wife was sad because the gift she got me didn’t work and I was kind of sad too.... I went online with my home pc and googled the error. Booooooooooooooom Mr. Tyler Post was an angel shining at me... I tried it and it Woooooorked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I register to say THANK YOU THANK YOU!!