XP Home reinstall hangs on Dell Dimension 8300

Hello.

I need to reinstall Windows XP Home.

I have a Dell Dimension 8300 computer with a 120GB SATA hard drive (Dell Service Tag 66LY71S). When I boot from the Windows XP CD that came with my computer, Windows setup briefly says "Setup is inspecting your hardware" then the screen goes blank and the hard disk light comes on and stays on although it is not making any noise. It doesn’t even get to the initial blue Windows Setup screen. I’ve left it sitting there for 20 minutes or more and nothing happens. The 4 diagnostic lights on the back of the PC are all green indicating "The computer is in a normal operating condition after POSTâ€. I have to switch off the computer at this point. I tried this with two other XP Home CDs that I know work OK on other computers and they all do the same thing.

If I go into the BIOS to the "Drive Configuration" section and change the value of the "SATA Primary Drive" setting from AUTO to OFF (the only other option) and save the changes, the XP setup program will run without locking up. The problem is that setup then gets to a point and says something to the effect of "Setup can’t find a hard disk on your systemâ€.

I tried to do a reinstall a couple of years ago when I had a virus infection and the same thing happened. I ended up removing the virus rather than reinstalling.

The BIOS is the latest version for my system (A07) and the model number for my hard disk is Seagate ST3120023AS. The hard disk controller is an Intel 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controller. I’ve run hardware diagnostics and it doesn’t report any issues with the hardware. The system is functioning perfectly with Vista on it now. The Vista setup program when booted from the DVD doesn’t experience this problem.

Can someone please help? I’m going mental trying to fix this!!!!!!!!!

 

This means you needed to hit the F6 key at the promopt to add drivers from a floppy for your SATA controller.

 

Problem has gone away now. Someone found a link for me that enabled me to activate Vista with another reinstall. http://www.windowsitpro.com/mobile/pda/Article.cfm?ArticleID=95011&News=1