Well I ain't seen this one before:



My friend's laptop is having a rather major problem with an xp install. After getting the blue screen of death on his past install he decided to try the reinstall to fix everything. When he tried to he got what was shown on the picture above.

At great cost he then formatted his hd using a ntfs dos format jobby (because he thought it may help) and now there is no operating system there at all, and he... we can't install xp. The machine is currently an oversized doorstop.

So guys what is the problem here?

The machine is a couple of years old Medion laptop.

I was wondering if it was a sata drive problem. The bios recognises that there's a Western Digital hd in there; the xp install doesn't.

Could this be a driver problem even if the bios detects the hd?

Could I require 3rd party drivers you can install before it gets to the point shown on the picture?

If I do need 3rd party drivers how do I find out what the motherboard is in the laptop?

How do I also load them in without a floppy drive (whats the process for usb driver installs)?

I may be barking up the wrong tree but I'm keen (strangely enough) to help my mate cos I told him I was good at this kind of thing. I am of course not and am therefore a big fat liar!

Help me techspot!

Oh by the way. When you press Enter when on the install page shown above you get the Blue Screen of Death.

Similar problem on this page too:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/micr...nown-disk.html

This thread seems to have come to nothing!

I don't have motherboard drivers and dont know what model the motherboard is bt the way!

Try Gparted to remove the Partition fully
Note: Do not manually create a partition
Do not manually Format

Once the Partition is fully removed...
Start Windows Setup which will automatically create a Partition and format to NTFS, all by itself (next next ok, that type of thing)

The hd has already been manually formatted.

The windows setup can't format because it doesn't recognise the drive.

Bit of a problem to say the least!

It's probably the now familiar SATA controller issue. This has been a problem ever since SATA devices came out years ago. Go into the BIOS and see if you can change the SATA/RAID controller mode to IDE mode. If you can do that, Windows setup should proceed normally. If the BIOS does not provide that option, you will have to run the controller as SATA or AHCI mode. If so, you will need to press F6 at the prompt to install third party drivers, namely the SATA/RAID controller drivers. Since you don't have a floppy, this won't work for you. A flash drive won't work for this purpose. You can prepare a slipstream CD with the SATA drivers combined with the Windows CD. Google for the procedure to make one.

You will have to go to the laptop manufacturer's website for the SATA/RAID drivers as well as the motherboard drivers. All you should need to locate the drivers is the laptop model name or number.

This is problem of SATA drivers, Download SATA Drivers and install drivers when windows installation while pressing F6. You can use USB floppy drive for install drivers. When after install drivers Hard disk will shown. Another method is go to BIOS and turn on SATA Native mode,,Then i will works with IDE..

Great advice guys. I'll try this as soon as a can and get back for results!