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XP Setup can't find my HDD

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by Romanov, 2008/01/27.

  1. 2008/01/27
    Romanov

    Romanov Inactive Thread Starter

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    Well, I failed to reinstall Vista on my laptop, and so thought I'd try an XP CD - unfortunately it seems the disk needs SCSI drivers or something similar, as Setup won't recognise that it exists at all. Problem is... I don't have a floppy drive to put the drivers into. I don't suppose there's a workaround for that? The machine wasn't really meant for XP, but I'm sure there are other machines without floppy disk drives which must need these drivers...
     
    Romanov,
    #1
  2. 2008/01/27
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Romanov - Welcome to the Board :)

    I guess your hard drive is SATA (Serial ATA) in which case the drivers are unlikely to be on the XP CD. There is a workaround for those without a floppy drive - posted as seen and not proven by myself ....

    Install Windows XP on SATA without a Floppy (F6)
     
    PeteC,
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  4. 2008/01/27
    Romanov

    Romanov Inactive Thread Starter

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    You're a genius, PeteC, thanks a bunch. :)

    However, finding the right drivers for it could be a problem...
    I've found this download from Intel, which is all they have for SATA controllers:
    http://tinyurl.com/3yvh8p

    Might that work?

    My HD:
    Intel ICH8-M AHCI ST9160821AS

    There's also an ATA/AHCI option in the BIOS, though I'm not sure wther it'll work or even have any effect. Could switching that from AHCI to ATA work?
     
    Romanov,
    #3
  5. 2008/01/28
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    When you get to the "select which drivers to load" page during setup, select ALL the Intel drivers, there should be 4 of them. Then, xp may tell you that "driver xxx already exists, do you want to use the new one? ". Choose "yes ".

    The link above point to PCI-Express to Serial converter drivers, which is probably NOT what you need.
    The sata drivers for your motherboard will be here:
    http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-015001.htm

    The way to tell exactly which ones you need is to look at the laptop user manual's specs page, or go to the manufacturer site and look at the specs. It will say which Intel chipset is used. The use the above chart to get the needed sata drivers for that particular chipset.

    I recenyly picked up a USB floppy for about 25 bucks and it works to load sata drivers in xp installs.
     
    Last edited: 2008/01/28
    TonyT,
    #4

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