Hard Drive not detected when isntalling XP

I have a Gateway NX860XL (bought it before Acer took over, woohoo!), and I had the option of having XP or Vista when purchasing it. I went with Vista since I always though, "Hey, I can always downgrade to XP." Unfortunately it wasn't that easy.

I remember reading a thread here from Dumb_Blonde, but her situation was different.

Basically, I want to install XP onto my Vista laptop to see if I enjoy it better that way. I have nothing against Vista, I just want to try out XP.

Anyways, I tried putting in my XP OS disk, rebooting, and installing XP. After a bunch of things loaded on the bottom (in text), it gives me an error. I can't write word for word, but it sums up to, "Hard drive not detected, make sure you have a drive enabled."

I tried many different XP disks and came up with the same error. During the loading, I saw a few options of pushing F keys and adjusting stuff, but whatever combination I did, I came to that error.

Now, I've asked elsewhere and I've heard a few suggestions.

1. Change the HDD to IDE mode. (That makes no sense to me, IDE is a cable).
2. Change the boot from CDROM to HDD. (Then how is my laptop suppose to read the disk in the first place?).
3. Create a custom boot disk. (I will probably be using http://www.nliteos.com/.

I went into BIOS and Boot Menu to see what I can fiddle with, but with laptops there aren't much things you can change. So I ask you all, what can I do to solve this problem. I will most likely do the custom boot disk, but less work is always better .

 

Sounds like you have a sata harddrive and you need to slipstream sata drivers into a version of windows xp or use and external floppy or the like to get it to work.

 

Yes, while IDE is a cable, the computer's BIOS has to be set to that mode. Check the BIOS again, or get the SATA drivers for your particular notebook.

 

I went into BIOS, I can't change much since it's a laptop and I am very limited. I couldn't change any of my HDD settings.

As for slipstreaming, can it be done through a USB stick? Right now I am going to create a custom boot disk as a last resort.

 

BTW: IDE is not a cable. IDE(AKA: ATAPI/ATA) stands for Integrated Drive Electronics and is an acronym for the entire interface initally developed by Western Digital. An IDE cable is just the vessel used to connect the drive to the interface.

In your example, the BIOS is simply asking you if you want to use the older IDE interface or the newer AHCI interface.

 

Edit: I just found this little gem that may help:
http://neonpulse.net/2008/03/06/windows-xp-on-the-gateway-p-6831fx/

There are probably several ways to see if your drive is SATA. This way comes to mind. Run HDTune.



You may have to delete the partitions before XP can see the drive. Use Gparted.

This would be due to some mysterious partition the OEM installed. I had this happen once. It could be SATA drivers I suppose, as mentioned. Some mama boards require SATA drivers be installed separately.

Here is another neat little program to see if you are SATA.



Notice you can not determine the drive is SATA in device manager.

 

I feel bad that you guys went through the trouble of helping me.

Well, I created a custom XP disk and integrated the drivers into the disk. When I tested to see if my HDD would detect it, it did. So I went on and formatted, installed XP, and am now in the process of getting all my neat programs back.

Thanks again.

 

Cool, glad you got everything working again! And don't feel bad, thats what were here for!