Win XP home installation error: "Setup cannot find harddrive"

[SlimNatey]

I just tried to reformat and install windows XP home edition, and upon coming to the screen of "Repair" or "Install fresh copy" I received an error reporting:

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.

I have no idea why it would be saying this, I'm using the same computer now 30 seconds later than when I was trying to install windows.

Currently, I'm using Windows Professional x64 (this is the reason I want home, I hate not having any drivers for webcams, printers, and the like) Asus A8V-Deluxe motherboard and the harddrive in question is a Western Digital 160gb, 7200rpm, 8mb buffer SATA drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Rik]

A friend of mine is also running a 64bit system, we tried to install xp pro on it and it was extremely unstable. It now has xp64 on it and it runs fine. As for the drivers u mentioned, its just a matter of time. The industry will hopefully catch up soon.

 

[gbhall]

You 'tried to reformat' ?

Maybe you dont have a formatted partition at all now?

You could try to run FDISK from an install CD (can be almost any version of Windows) to see what partitioning you now have, and what formatting the partitions have (if any)

 

[ewill82]

Similar problems

I have a reletively new IBM laptop, (unaffected by the battery recall) which i purchased with XP home because I have a version of PRO from school. I threw the XP PRO disk in my machine and went to install but it comes up with the exact same error SlimNatey encountered. How is this possible. I am using my laptop to make this post, I think my hard drive is installed properly. I also tried a second XP disk from work because I wasn't sure if it was just my version that was screwy. No change.

What is going on?

 

[Rick]

A friend of mine is also running a 64bit system, we tried to install xp pro on it and it was extremely unstable. It now has xp64 on it and it runs fine. As for the drivers u mentioned, its just a matter of time. The industry will hopefully catch up soon.

If anything, Windows XP x64 is very unstable, most of which I might blame drivers for.

There's absolutely no problems running a 32-bit OS on a '64-bit' AMD or Intel CPU, because they aren't truely 64-bit. These CPUs just have 64-bit extensions. Check out information on AMD64, which is the 'buzzword' behind extending 32-bit CPUs to 64-bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD64 . AMD64 was also used by Intel and rebadged as EM64T.

Intel's Itanium, by comparison, is purely 64-bit and will not run 32-bit Windows without emulation.

 

[Rik]

SlimNatey, you need to install the sata driver that should be on the cd that came with your mobo during the windows installation. There is a part where it says press F6 (if my memory serves) to install a third party raid driver, that when windows needs the sata driver in order to recognise your hard drive.

 

[ewill82]

Set it...and forget it.

Similar problems
I have a reletively new IBM laptop, (unaffected by the battery recall) which i purchased with XP home because I have a version of PRO from school. I threw the XP PRO disk in my machine and went to install but it comes up with the exact same error SlimNatey encountered. How is this possible. I am using my laptop to make this post, I think my hard drive is installed properly. I also tried a second XP disk from work because I wasn't sure if it was just my version that was screwy. No change.

What is going on?
Edit/Delete Message


After a few hours on the phone w/ MS support i finally got xp pro instlaled. I guess if you have Home ed. w/ sp2 the machine reeeeally doesn't want to go back to any version w/ out sp2. My xp pro disk was from 2003, so no sp's were on it. To solve the problem they told me how to install sp2 to my xp pro setup file before i installed/upgraded to the better version. here is a link to the directions, http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.aspx?id=9636
I guess its called slipstream when you alter the version prior to installation.

 

[Machinist]

I had the same problem with my install it was a system file named VIAIDE.SYS that was needed. It can be downloaded on line if that is what you need