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

[tomd741]

Specs:
Compaq Presario C350EA
It has NO floppy disk drive

The problem - I installed Fedora 8 (linux) about a week ago, after trying to get my wireless to work, i decided to go back to windows.
I booted from the CD and installed XP. When i started the computer, it would not go past the XP loading screen instead it flashed blue screen and reseted and kept looping.
So, i booted from Darik's Boot and Nuke and did the automatic wipe.
Now the problem is that whenever i insert the XP CD i get the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your system" and therefore can't install.

I have been reading up on this topic and it seems that to get the XP CD to install you have to install some sort of driver from a floppy disk during the XP installation... The fact of the matter is, im out of my comfort zone!

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You probably need to provide SATA drivers during the initial setup stages. Try that or configure your SATA HDD to run as an ATA or "IDE" device in the BIOS.

 

[tomd741]

The doesnt appear to be an option to do this in the bios

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

...Okay, then you'll need to provide the SATA drivers during the initial stages of setup. Here is a quick guide found via search.yahoo.com.

 

[tomd741]

Cheers i'll read through now and post updates

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Good luck!

 

[tomd741]

The feeling im getting is that im going to have to buy an external floppy disk drive

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Well, no, not necessarily. You can "slipstream" the drivers into your XP CD.

 

[tomd741]

sounds very complicated :O
no worries though, i just tried an XP pro installation disk and it seems to be installing fine - it recognised the HD, i partioned off 80gigs and formatted using the XP pro installer.
Not quite sure why the other disk didnt work and this one did :S oh well, computers cant live with them cant live without them!
Thanks for the help, i'll bear it in mind for the future

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You're welcome. It's not as complicated as it seems. Check out a program called nLite the next time you're bored.

 

[tomd741]

im back

Right this is becoming a pain now!

I managed to install XP pro but i had the same problem as i had previosly of it blue screening during start up.

Sooo now ive used nLite to slipstream the HD driver into my original XP CD! It seems to have worked, meaning that it now recognises the HD.
So im formatting a partion of the HD prior to installing widows on it.

Im slowly moving up the learning curve i think

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

..Happen to be a pirated copy of Windows?

 

[tomd741]

Nope it was from the restore disk that came with my wife's laptop

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Might not of been able to activate it with her OEM product key anyhow. That would of been quite the let down eh?

 

[tomd741]

Don't the restore disks work on any PC though?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

They'll usually "work" in the sense that you can install Windows just fine, sure. When it comes time to activate that OEM key of hers though, you probably won't be able to.

*Edit*

I'm only referring to CDs that come with PCs other than the one you're attempting to use it on, so there is no confusion. For instance you have two computers, PC 1 and PC 2 (which are totally different models). You generally cannot use the OEM CD key from PC 1 on PC 2 and vice versa.

 

[tomd741]

ok i see, so once i have installed it i will most probably have to buy a new OEM key from windows?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I'm not Microsoft so I can't really answer that, however, you won't be purchasing an "OEM" key, no. You can read about License types here.

 

[tomd741]

right so its attached to the computer basically, god i need to work on my computer knowledge in this new age :SS

 

[tomd741]

OK, my final post hopefully!
Windows installed sucessfully and works!
I just need to buy a copy of it now so it stays active.
Thanks for the help Zenosincks

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I've seen some people claim to have been able to use their XP CD's from eMachines etc on other PCs. Personally, I haven't had any such luck with using an OEM key on other PCs.

There are known methods of working around it, however, they're both illegal and not supported by this community.