Where Is Computer Gurus: How To Format "sata" Hard Disk In Laptop

Hello Brothers in Nairaland

I recently bought ACER Extensa laptop, i want to format the hard disk to remove Windows Vista to  install Windows XP, after following the procedure to format it, it always shown "hard disk not detected", one of my friend told me that it has what is called SATA Hard Disk and i have to follow some procedures that he doesn't know to format it. Please my dear brothers in this forum help me with procedures to format this laptop.

Thanks Nairalanders[b][/b]
 

Well Said Paribus

^@Ali
I guess your hard drive is detected under BIOS. This problem happens when you have SATA hard drive and you have RAID/SATA mode configured in BIOS. There are 2 ways of fixing this problem.
I had this problem and what I did was to change the SATA Mode to IDE in BIOS. My computer BIOS is Phoenix AwardBIOS 6.00PG and I can change the SATA Mode to IDE by going to Integrated Peripherals > SATA Devices Configuration > SATA Mode [RAID] and change to [IDE]. If you’re unable to change RAID mode to IDE or disable SATA in BIOS, then you need to download SATA RAID drivers from your motherboard manufacturer’s website, extract the drivers to a floppy disk and then insert the floppy to your computer during Windows XP installation.

Insert Windows XP CD and boot it up. You should see a message that says “Press any key to boot from CD…” Simply hit any key and it’ll start to boot from CD. Pay attention to the next blue colored windows setup screen. When you see a message that says “Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver…” at the bottom bar, immediately hit F6 key.

After loading some files, you will come to a screen that says the following:

Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system, or you have chosen to manually specify an adapter. Currently, Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices(s):

< none >

* To specify additional SCSI adapters, CD-ROM drives, or special disk controllers for use with Windows, including those for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufacturer, press S.

* If you do not have any device support disks from a mass storage device manufacturer, or do not want to specify additional mass storage devices for use with Windows, press ENTER.

Enter floppy drive with SATA drivers and press S. It will present a list of drivers which it read from the disk earlier. Select the appropriate driver and continue the Windows XP installation. The setup will continue and this time it will recognize the SATA hard disk drive in your PC.

This problem is quite common nowadays compared to last time because a lot of computers now are using SATA hard drive with better motherboards that has RAID.

MS OS don't generally allow kickstarting the setup process for a lower edition OS from within a higher level OS. Like trying to install XP from within Vista, or 2000 professional from within XP, NT4 workstation from within 2000 professional etc. This would most likely generate a warning message "The current operating system is higher than the version of the operating system you are trying to install" - not in exact words. At this stage, you can no longer proceed with the installation process.

Also the F6 process is quite picky as to the location where it seeks the mass storage drivers, it always indicate that it is searching the floppy disk drive and there is no guarantee that it would look at an attached flash drive location (as this would most likely be assigned drive letters other than A:), if it ignores the flash drive, be ready to use a usb floppy drive unless you have slipstreamed the drivers onto an xp cd image for which you won't need to use the F6 prompt anyway. Regards

When lifting technical procedures or solutions from other sites, always ensure to give credit by properly citing your source(s).  Cutting and pasting bits from other sources in an attempt to be seem as originating a solution is distasteful.  It's indeed more honorable to provide a link to a solution written by someone else than reinventing the wheel.


I believe the thread originator and us all can draw on the solution as proferred from the complete procedures here:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=414


NOTE where the document author clearly indicated as below

Please do not post these instructions on any other site. I put a lot of time into getting these to work properly. Link to this article instead using this URL: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=414


Also note clearly that this would only work for the sata controllers that were indicated as supported in the solution document, the thread author should check which sata controller comes with his laptop and might need to make adjustments to the procedures as appropriate to get this to work for him if his laptop comes with a different sata controller other than the ones listed.

Regards

i had same problem over the weekend. u try to install xp and it'll get to a stage and tell u "Harddrive not detected bla bla bla "
then u'll be asked to press F3 to quit

here's how i solved mine.
1. use hiren't boot cd to re-partition
2. go into bios and toggle the settings of your hdd, look for any option u get to chang its attribute to LBA.

mine was a hp-compaq

anothe solution is to integrate the sata drivers wit your xp to create a new xp the will see the hard drive,that is what i did to install xp alongside vista on my hp pavillion

Thats great. alot of gurus in the house
I LOVE NAIRALAND