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Home > Solutions > Windows > Windows XP > Windows Setup: Setup did not find any hard disk drives…

July 25, 2009 by Rosco 266 Comments

Windows Setup: Setup did not find any hard disk drives…

Hard Disk Gone Missing?

After booting from the Windows XP setup CD the blue setup screen appears and goes the through the usual process of installing it’s drivers. When you reach the Welcome Screen and choose to install Windows you are presented with the error “Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer” similar to the screenshot below.

Some Common Symptoms

  • You are presented with the error message: Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer at the point in the setup where you are asked to press ENTER to “setup Windows XP now”
  • You are presented with the error message Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer after pressing ‘R‘ to “repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console”

192.168.l. Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer

Explanation

This error will appear most often when your hard disk is on an SATA or SCSI controller and Windows setup does not have a suitable driver. In most cases these days you won’t have a floppy disk either to load the drivers. There are a few ways to deal with this ranging from the very simple (hopefully says you!) to the long and somewhat difficult. See the solutions below for more.

Solution 1 – Set Your SATA Controller to Compatability/IDE/Standard Mode

  1. Enter your BIOS/Setup Utility
  2. Locate the Serial ATA or SATA configuration section
    • I’ve seen this section called ‘On Chip Config’ on some Phoenix Award BIOS
    • On Lenovo/IBM ThinkPads it’s in Config > Serial ATA (Sata)
  3. Change the mode of the SATA controller from AHCI to IDE or Compatibility
  4. Save & Exit
  5. Reboot and begin the Windows Setup again.
  6. If Windows Setup successfully detects your hard disk this time then go ahead and perform the Windows Setup.
  7. When Windows setup completes change the mode back to AHCI in the BIOS
  8. If your problem still exists after changing this option then change it back to AHCI and proceed to Solution 2 below.

Solution 2 – Load your SATA drivers using a Floppy Disk (or CD)

UPDATE JAN 2011 – Create A Custom Windows XP CD with your SATA drivers as an alternative to using a floppy disk. If you need help finding your SATA drivers see the article How To Find Your SATA Drivers

    1. If you already have a floppy disk drive in your computer then great, proceed to Step 2. If you don’t, click here to get one
    2. Go to either your computer manufacturers support website or if you have a custom build then go to your mainboards manufacturers support website and download the SATA driver package. Some popular manuafacturers are listed below:
      • HP/Compaq Support
      • IBM/Lenovo Support
      • Dell Support
    3. Extract the downloaded driver to a blank floppy disk
    4. DO NOT insert the floppy disk into the computer that you are attempting to run Windows Setup on
    5. Insert your Windows XP CD and start your computer, press any key to boot from CD if requested
    6. As soon as the blue setup screen appears press F6 on your keyboard. The message to press F6 will disappear and be replaced by a message requesting you to press F2 for ASR. Do NOT press F2 (web page).
    7. After the “Setup is loading files” part is complete you will be presented with the screen below
    8. Insert the floppy disk you created and press S to Specify Additional Device. Windows will load your driver and you can now continue Windows Setup as normal.

192.168.1.1

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Filed Under: Solutions, Windows, Windows XP, Windows-Zone Tagged With: boot, recover, sata_drivers, Solutions, startup, Windows, windows-startup-troubles, windows-zone, xp

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Saurabh Sood says

    August 24, 2009 at 16:12

    Thanks for the post.
    Very useful info.
    I solved my problem by reading it.
    Cheers!!
    Saurabh

    Reply
    • Ravinderpal Singh says

      June 11, 2011 at 09:31

      You may try to disable the SATA mode at the BIOS.
      It worked for my HP 540.

      Reply
      • satpal singh says

        August 1, 2011 at 12:01

        Hi,
        Change the mode of the SATA controller from AHCI to IDE or Compatibility…I’m not able to find the option.Model HP.

        Reply
    • Syed says

      September 30, 2012 at 13:41

      Great(: it solved the problem
      Thanks

      Reply
      • Dennis says

        September 15, 2014 at 03:51

        Disabling the SATA allowed me to continue Windows XP Home Edition on my Compaq Preserio N5000. Thanks a Bunches!!!!

        Reply
    • Krazygator says

      November 6, 2012 at 12:47

      Worked on Acer Aspire 5315 Thanks DUDE

      Reply
    • Abhishek says

      June 9, 2014 at 04:43

      how did u solved ur problem…my bios setup is locked…i don’t have manufacturer cd….now plzz tell me how to install xp…hard drive not found is problem….tell me how to use sata driver to load hard disk….thank uu..waiting for the solution…

      Reply
      • raja iqram says

        July 8, 2015 at 02:31

        when i press f3 and system restart and write press ctrl+Alt+Del to restart when i press this no response

        Reply
  2. THE DINI says

    September 14, 2009 at 00:30

    Worked for me on an HP Compaq nx7400 when i was trying to put in a new 320GB HD.

    THANKS SO MUCH!!!

    Reply
    • fuzzy says

      August 24, 2013 at 14:24

      exact same laptop model and drive size and it worked. disabled native sata mode in bios and xp setup did not complain.

      THANKS!!!

      Reply
      • Ganda says

        October 2, 2013 at 02:09

        This also worked on my laptop

        Reply
      • Stan says

        February 3, 2015 at 04:05

        Also works for me, I set SATA native mode to “disabled”. (HP Compaq nx7400).

        Reply
  3. PC Arbor says

    September 18, 2009 at 04:26

    Interesting.

    Times are a changing.

    I like XP but it can be tough to fix sometimes. (But it is still easier for me to understand than NT!)

    Thanks for posting.

    Reply
  4. PC Arbor says

    September 18, 2009 at 05:13

    Saw this during my Thursday night web searches. Amazing what stuff you can find doing a search XP repair ideas.
    Kind of caught me off guard.

    Thanks for posting.

    Reply
  5. Jaye says

    September 28, 2009 at 18:43

    Hey man, good post but It doesnt work for me because i dont have that option in my BIOS i have phoenix version f.38, any ideas?

    Reply
  6. Rosco says

    September 28, 2009 at 18:59

    HI Jaye,

    Try the following:

    In BIOS:

    Onboard Devices -> Flash Cache Module -> Set Off
    Onboard Devices -> SATA Operation -> Set ATA

    Let me know it works as I will update the article.

    Cheers

    Rosco

    Reply
    • kaseniv says

      October 29, 2013 at 09:03

      I too have a problem with this I have pentium 4 old PC I don’t have the prescribed options in my BIOS plz advice

      Reply
  7. Sam says

    October 1, 2009 at 22:00

    I have the similar problem, i found this article via google, I am stuck just like this same problem, I am going to try this method and let you all know if it works, Thankyou

    Reply
    • Muhammad says

      July 22, 2012 at 08:09

      I can´t get into my BIOS, it seems it ignores the tab “DEL” Is/are there any other method to solve this problem, please. PC is Chilligreen. Wanted to upgrade with a 320GB SATA HD.

      Reply
  8. Sam says

    October 6, 2009 at 18:30

    GOOD NEWS, yep it worked i tryed the first method, where i needed to change the option
    AHCI to IDE, than it worked, but when i go back to change it after installtion, and restarted the pc, it doesnt load the OS anymore, i guess i would have to keep it on IDE option

    i installed Microsoft Windows XP XP3 in my Acer Aspire 5720z Laptop, All GOOD

    THANKYOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIPS AND TRICKS, it worekd flawlessly.

    Reply
  9. Ken says

    October 31, 2009 at 03:58

    For step 1, I can’t find those settings in my BIOS… I have Phoenix 75.06…. Help please?

    Reply
  10. thx4help says

    November 9, 2009 at 15:15

    Worked great. Ty for taking the time to post this great info.

    Reply
  11. Ken says

    November 10, 2009 at 03:05

    Again, I really need help. I need this computer being I’m starting college at the end of this semester, and I don’t have the money for a new one right now.

    Like I said, for step 1, I can’t find the settings you mentioned in the BIOS…..My BIOS are Phoenix 75.06. Help, please.

    Reply
  12. edifier says

    December 3, 2009 at 03:14

    thanx it work!!! I just change the AHCI to IDE then I save then REBOOT….. thanx…

    Reply
  13. hOU says

    December 7, 2009 at 14:38

    Worked for me on Acer Aspire One. Thanks a lot.

    Reply
  14. Kevin says

    December 9, 2009 at 14:21

    changing the sata from ACHI to IDE in my BIOS worked for me. thanks you!!!!!!!! (installing win 7)

    Reply
  15. mi says

    February 9, 2010 at 20:48

    Hello !
    Couldn’t find these settings in my BIOS. I have a HD Toshiba MK4018gas-(pm).
    Thanks for helping.

    Reply
    • xavier says

      June 10, 2011 at 17:37

      dude just disable SATA native support, and will work like a charm hope this work for you!

      Reply
      • Sripal says

        September 17, 2013 at 02:28

        Thank You Xavier…It works for compaq presario

        Reply
      • jain says

        February 3, 2017 at 04:02

        thanks a lot Mr. Xavier

        Reply
      • Richard says

        March 26, 2017 at 13:15

        I don’t know you, Xavier…but you’re my hero! Thanks for the advice. It worked for me.

        Reply
  16. Keith says

    February 20, 2010 at 19:50

    Fair play brilliant work sir. Had me baffled for a couple of days now.

    Cheers

    K

    Reply
  17. Kolynz says

    March 28, 2010 at 16:38

    Hey , i have faced this problem majorly on toshiba machines but never solved any…
    now the floppy disk drive you talk about is not available on these laptops…
    in this case, can i use a disk to extract these drivers?

    i mean like a memory stick that uses usb..
    thanks big.

    Reply
  18. Mowali says

    April 6, 2010 at 17:23

    First one solved my problem – working on a lenovo :). Thank you alot.

    Reply
    • Jadore says

      August 10, 2012 at 06:40

      Set to compatibility if IDE don’t appear on option (Only Compatibility) // True Story

      Reply
  19. ken says

    April 10, 2010 at 08:34

    Thanks! Changing Sata settings in BIOS worked with my Lenovo T61 and solved the problem. Great post!

    Reply
    • RAJ PANVAL says

      August 22, 2012 at 11:44

      There is no compatibility option in lenovo K series desktops.Only DISBALE,IDE,ACHI,SCSI Options available there? how can i solve
      problem?

      Thnx,
      RAJ

      Reply
  20. John says

    April 20, 2010 at 05:13

    Hey, Thanks a lot buddy!
    I’m not so good with computers and was having trouble with this for a long time. It really helped a lot ^_^.

    Reply
  21. Dan says

    April 30, 2010 at 12:50

    Many thanks!! Step 1 solve my problem on a Acer Aspire ONE! 🙂

    Reply
    • Anonymous says

      January 16, 2013 at 09:04

      OOOOOIUYTREWQ

      Reply
  22. Uri says

    May 2, 2010 at 09:33

    Perfect .. thanks for the lead. Have an HP and only had an option to Disable SATA Native support from BIOS but it worked a treat.

    Reply
  23. Jason Egan says

    July 19, 2010 at 16:25

    Thank you so much! I am working with an older IBM Thinkpad (Levono x60) and after I ran Active Killdisk and tried to load it with WinXPSP3, I got the same error. Setting the SATA config to Compatibility mode worked like a charm! I love the internet!

    Reply
  24. JONO says

    July 31, 2010 at 10:16

    Thanks MATE AWESOME…

    Reply
  25. FG says

    August 1, 2010 at 15:37

    Thank you!

    Reply
  26. Benny says

    August 3, 2010 at 09:33

    Hello,

    Thank you very much for the answer. its very valuable.

    Thanks for your generosity.

    Regrds
    Benny

    Reply
  27. johorean says

    August 12, 2010 at 13:57

    Hello,
    I’m still cant solved my problem!
    HP Compaq Presario V3000 dont have a AHCI or IDE at BIOS.

    Still get the message “Setup did not find any hard………To quit Setup,press F3.

    Could u please help me.

    TQVM.

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      September 23, 2010 at 09:30

      Hi Johnorean…sorry for the late reply…

      Do you still have this issue?

      Let me know and I’ll assist if possible.

      R.

      Reply
      • sandip says

        August 9, 2012 at 22:56

        he r i m also facing same problem
        pls tell me what can to for same

        Reply
    • NIKHIL says

      July 31, 2013 at 06:43

      Hi johorean im also having same problem in same laptop if u have solution reply me or mail me nikhil.rg22@GMAIL.COM PLEASE

      Reply
  28. Vladimir says

    August 18, 2010 at 02:20

    Hey Johorear
    Has same problem, just Disable SATA in Bios and it works for me

    Reply
  29. Daryl Rano says

    August 23, 2010 at 12:45

    AWESOME! It worked! I disabled SATA in gthe BIOS..
    Thank you for posting this!

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      September 23, 2010 at 09:28

      Hi Daryl, What’s your pc model/bios details?

      Can you share with others?

      Thanks

      R.

      Reply
  30. nhikol says

    August 25, 2010 at 04:57

    I have the same problem after using DBAN. I don’t know what to do to fix this problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite L40-14Y Originally with Windows Vista. I triying to install Windows XP.

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      September 23, 2010 at 09:27

      Hi Nhikol…DBAN wipes hard disks so it’s likely that you’ll get this error after using DBAN.

      What’s your current situation?

      R.

      Reply
  31. kelvin says

    September 14, 2010 at 21:57

    you have saved me loads of money. I was almost buying a new hard drive. Thanks loads loads

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      September 23, 2010 at 07:44

      Hey Kelvin…glad a saved you a load of money….feel free to give it to me 🙂 🙂 🙂

      Don’t thin hard drives cost a lot these days anyway….I would think it saves hassle more than money….all that transferring of data, reinstalling windows…what a pain eh.

      Thanks for stopping by http://www.proposedsolution.com

      Rosco

      Reply
  32. edin says

    September 20, 2010 at 04:14

    you are number 1
    Thank you for posting this!

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      September 23, 2010 at 07:41

      You’re welcome Edin. Glad it worked for you.

      R.

      Reply
  33. adam says

    October 12, 2010 at 18:16

    Kinda shocked I’ve never ran into this problem before. Thanks. Changing the SATA to “Raid/ATA” on a dell worked for me.

    Reply
  34. MJS says

    October 12, 2010 at 19:48

    Lenovo Think Pad … solved at step 1 … Many thanks ..

    Reply
  35. ktt says

    October 26, 2010 at 17:47

    i am trying the first step…but when i couldn’t located AHCI to IDE or Compatibility. I found AHCI in the bio, but when i click on AHCI, there is no option for me to change to IDE. my laptop doesn’t have a floppy disk hard drive.

    plz help…what else can I do?Thanks in advance.

    Reply
  36. Rosco says

    October 26, 2010 at 18:12

    Hi Ktt, What’s your make/model of laptop?

    Reply
  37. ROmmel VIllanueva says

    October 29, 2010 at 06:20

    thanx you so much!! it work on my ASUS laptop!! so much time to research on how to fixed this kind of problem…. thank you so much!!!

    Reply
    • Ruben says

      November 2, 2012 at 20:14

      trying to install windows after the cannot find bootable device. How did you do it?

      Reply
  38. Rabe says

    November 4, 2010 at 08:02

    Worked for me! Thank you 🙂

    Reply
  39. James says

    November 8, 2010 at 05:30

    well not worked for me
    have tried but i cant get the option of sata drives.. system bios are shadowed.. how to change this??

    Reply
  40. jano says

    November 9, 2010 at 17:51

    ktt i tried simple:i disabled achi and there is all right,try that

    Reply
  41. Noman says

    November 10, 2010 at 06:28

    this is cool, thank you dear, it works!

    Reply
  42. Noman says

    November 10, 2010 at 06:32

    a ha .. now i get another error …. Fatal Error: Data Error (Cyclic Redundancy Error).. wha tis this?

    Reply
  43. Noman says

    November 10, 2010 at 06:36

    this is funny … i changed the boot-able CD .. however both were burnt from the same source but the other one worked … funny, isn’t it?

    Reply
  44. Rosco says

    November 10, 2010 at 06:38

    Hi Noman,

    This error is most likely relted to the CD/DVD that you’re using. Make sure it’s clean and scratch free. If it is, try to use a different CD/DVD drive (borrow an external one if possible).

    Rosco

    Reply
  45. Christy says

    November 19, 2010 at 14:41

    I have a Dell Precision T7400. In BIOS, there is only ATA and AHCI (no IDE). I have it set to ATA otherwise it BSODs when loading Windows XP 64 bit disk. I loaded SATA drivers from Dell’s website for XPx64 to a floppy but there are too many options. There are about 16 total different options when in the 3rd party SCSI or RAID driver screen. How do you know which one to pick?

    Reply
  46. Sandi L. says

    November 20, 2010 at 17:36

    Thanks for this. You’re a lifesaver. It was a very big help for me. I used it on a Compaq Proliant ML370 server.

    Reply
  47. frank says

    December 5, 2010 at 03:48

    thanks for the support, unfortunately i had phoenix bios on my compaq laptop, nad coldnt find the sata settings, only option for enable or disable, so i disbaled the sata and it worked…
    just sharing for future reference…

    Reply
  48. Isidro says

    December 8, 2010 at 17:39

    this worked for a Lenovo T60 on first try. Thank you for the tip.

    Reply
  49. sk says

    December 10, 2010 at 11:06

    Thanks Rosco for your post. It worked for me, have dv8000- xp pro.
    Changed, SATA native mode to Disable ( don’t have option for ACHI, IDE etc.)

    Reply
  50. Robert Walker says

    December 13, 2010 at 03:57

    Yep the BIOS option (disable SATA) worked a treat on a HP compaq nw8440 notebook. Thanks very much!

    Reply
  51. Joe says

    January 3, 2011 at 13:49

    The BIOS compatibility option worked on a Lenovo T60. Thank you very much & God Bless You.

    Reply
  52. wendimaye says

    January 6, 2011 at 01:19

    thank you so much.. i didn’t even get the thought of changing ahci to ata.. and now it worked. Thank you! God Bless

    Reply
  53. MrCrispy says

    January 6, 2011 at 07:05

    Worked like a dream ! Thanks god for geeks 😀

    Reply
  54. Tom says

    January 13, 2011 at 07:41

    Worked great for me. Thank you.

    Reply
  55. Anonymous says

    January 24, 2011 at 07:29

    Top Class, worked for me. Keep up the good work
    Gary from Ireland

    Reply
  56. THANK U says

    January 27, 2011 at 16:10

    Thank you soooooooo much… worked perfectly!~

    Reply
  57. Eric says

    January 31, 2011 at 16:44

    Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you, You’re the man worked perfectly..

    Reply
  58. Bobi says

    February 3, 2011 at 03:41

    I turned off SATA and it worked for me..Thank you!!!!!!

    Reply
  59. TnT says

    February 3, 2011 at 17:05

    Awesome!!! Thanks a bunch! Totally worked!

    Reply
  60. Rahul says

    March 3, 2011 at 06:39

    thanks a lot brother…..this trick of yours helped me a lot…thank you so much.,,god bless u….

    Reply
  61. Kama says

    March 24, 2011 at 13:56

    Thankyou, changing ata in bios to compatablity mode solved the problem on Lenovo T61 Thinkpad. Hurray, goodbye vista, finally!! God bless the internet and people like you.

    Reply
  62. jack says

    March 26, 2011 at 20:19

    i cannnot find to set up my compaq cq40 netbook pc !!!

    Reply
  63. Youness says

    March 29, 2011 at 21:25

    Thanks the sata chages and it is working fine now

    Reply
  64. rakesh says

    April 3, 2011 at 09:18

    Thanks for your generosity.

    Reply
  65. shawn says

    April 3, 2011 at 21:33

    thanks. changed from raid to ide. worked like a charm

    Reply
  66. Amit S Valechha says

    April 8, 2011 at 04:29

    Thanks To All Of U To Give Me Such A Best Solution.

    Reply
  67. yk says

    April 12, 2011 at 22:22

    When my IBM/Lenovo X60 stops working, a replace it with a SATA disk. After inserting the XP setup CD, it is unable to detect the presence of a hard disk. Then I follow the instructions per Solution 1 (change to Compatibility mode). It works better as it starts to load drivers from CD, etc. After accepting the licence terms, etc. it detects the hard disk presence. Sounds good.

    But after I create a partition and have the disk format routine runs to an end, it gives out a blue screen.

    A problem has been detected and windows has to shutdown to prevent damage to your computer. …Check with your hardware vendor for any bios updates. …restart your computer. etc….etc.

    I am still not sure what is going on. Have I missed any steps? Or it is just a general hard failure (hard disk interface controller or the hard disk itself). What do you reckon?

    I am either going to find another hard disk to try or re-test the replacement hard disk to verify the disk is in fact working.

    Thanks for reading.

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      April 12, 2011 at 23:04

      Hi Yk,

      Since this article was written, there have been a few more recent ones that concentrate more on loading the correct SATA drivers for your hard disk from the outset.
      At this stage it is more advisable to try to download the correct drivers from the manufacturers website and either create a Windows XP CD with those drivers on it as detailed in this article: https://proposedsolution.com/howto/create-windows-xp-cd-sata-drivers/

      or else put the drivers on a separate floppy if you have a floppy drive and insert when prompted by Windows XP setup.

      In your case, it may be that compatability mode isn’t sufficient and it’s throwing a blue screen every time.

      R.

      Reply
      • yk says

        May 13, 2011 at 19:33

        Rosco, thank you for trying to help. I believe this laptop has a bad drive interface (hardware fault). So matter what I did it can’t help.

        Reply
  68. Fred says

    April 20, 2011 at 03:15

    hey thanks that was fantastic just got your advise on time and it worked great for me

    Reply
  69. Marvin says

    April 20, 2011 at 19:08

    That works thanks it saves me a lot of time.

    Reply
  70. drebirth says

    April 28, 2011 at 02:50

    Please I need help. am using SONY VAIO VGN-NR32M. I pressed F2 In BIOS i cant find Onboard Devices no to talk of Flash Cache Module to Set Off and Onboard Devices -> SATA Operation -> Set ATA. Pleas help this vista is pissy

    Reply
  71. ell says

    May 5, 2011 at 07:38

    Hi, i might be too late to get a reply from this 2 years old thread..but might be worth a try. My BIOS cannot detect hard disk after 2 years of using it. I might want to try your solution but i’ve read all the replies here is regarding new installation of windows. But in my situation, the hard disk can’t be detected after 2 years using it. Hundreds of artwork are on it… im desperately need all my data back. but windows cannot start and hard disk can’t be detected. 🙁 Im afraid by using your solution, it will make all the data gone? Is it safe for me to try the solution? Thank you very much..sorry for the long explanation!

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      May 5, 2011 at 08:18

      Hi Ell,

      Long explanations are better then short ones 🙂

      This article is related to the error that Windows cannot find the hard disk during Windows XP setup.

      I suspect that if you have been happily using your PC that you are not trying to run Windows XP Setup – please confirm.

      Please try to explain as best you can what happens on the screen from the moment you switch the PC on to the moment you can’t get any farther.

      Rosco

      Reply
      • ell says

        May 5, 2011 at 09:29

        Thanks for the reply! Yes, im not trying to run Windows XP setup…er sorry if i mistakenly in the wrong thread but the solutions seems promising.

        Ok, my problem is, when i startup the pc…there comes the black screen saying cannot find secondary drive, and ask me to hit f5 to retry in order to start the windows. The same error message come out redundantly if I hit f5. I wonder why it says secondary drive because its the only drive i have. (1 hard disk with no partition, yes all the data is only in C drive (i didn’t do the installation setup) The pc is now in IT department at my workplace and they said the hard disk is corrupted and wanted to replace with new hard disk. And now im all over the internet to find the solution to get it work or at least to get my data back… 🙁

        Reply
        • ell says

          May 5, 2011 at 09:35

          Ah… it also give option either to hit f5 or f2 (not really sure f?) to enter setup.

          Reply
          • Rosco says

            May 5, 2011 at 11:51

            Hi Ell

            If your IT Dept are suggesting that the drive is corrupt then u might
            be able to recover the data by installing it as a secondary drive and
            copying the data off of it.

            Firstly you’d have to install a new hard disk as primary and install
            windows on the good new drive. Then connect up your original drive as
            secondary so that both of them are in the pc at the same time. When
            the new windows boots open My Computer and you should see a C and a D
            where D is your old drive.

            At his stage you would hopefully be able to browse the drive and
            retrieve your files. If you do get this far, expect a few errors when
            copy and expect it to be slow but hope that it works long enough to
            retrieve the files!

            Rosco.

            Reply
  72. ell says

    May 5, 2011 at 16:51

    Thank you! i will try the solution and will update here tonite! Thank you very much for the advice Rosco!

    Reply
  73. geoff says

    May 24, 2011 at 02:29

    thanks this helped alot

    Reply
  74. Johan says

    May 26, 2011 at 01:40

    Wow! Thanks alot, solution 1 worked 100%

    Reply
  75. Dave says

    May 28, 2011 at 17:42

    There is no option in my bios to change anything having to do with sata.
    Toshiba Satellite L45-S7409
    Please advise
    Thank you

    Reply
    • Dave says

      May 28, 2011 at 18:55

      nevermind I did Solution 2 successfully
      thanks for the great info

      Reply
  76. moe says

    June 5, 2011 at 09:48

    very helpfull…………………..keep up the good work

    Reply
  77. wansajer says

    June 14, 2011 at 07:31

    for the hp user…just disable native support for SATA….!!!

    Reply
  78. robin says

    June 14, 2011 at 20:39

    cool! thanks for the tips, guys! this really helped me big time! 😉

    Reply
  79. BECKY says

    June 15, 2011 at 05:58

    My advent laptop 7105 is saying no hard disk found system recovery cannot be continued help what can I do?

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      June 15, 2011 at 06:27

      Hi Becky…did you check if your hard disk is detected in the BIOS? You can access the BIOS by pressing DEL key straight after you switch on the computer.

      Look for System Information.

      R.

      Reply
  80. SRAJU says

    June 16, 2011 at 04:00

    Hi I have HP Pavilion DV5000, I could not install Windows XP, I was getting this message.

    “ Setup could not find a Hard disk drive on your system.”

    Steps Taken:
    1: Restart your computer
    2: Press F10 go BIOS
    3: SATA
    4: Save changes and Exit.

    After Disabling SATA I was able to install Windows XP, worked like a beauty.

    Reply
  81. S.RAJU says

    June 16, 2011 at 04:03

    Hi I have a HP Pavilion DV5000, I could not install Windows XP, I was getting this message.

    “ Setup could not find a Hard disk drive on your system.”

    Steps Taken:

    1: Restart your computer
    2: Press F10 go BIOS
    3: Disable SATA
    4: Save changes and Exit.

    After Disabling SATA I was able to install Windows XP, worked like a beauty.

    Reply
    • Tea says

      August 28, 2013 at 03:26

      Thank you! Works like a charm!

      Reply
    • HAREESH says

      July 26, 2014 at 04:23

      That was great tip… Really helpful

      Reply
    • Jaden says

      December 29, 2014 at 21:19

      Thanks Raju, this worked on an older PC.

      Reply
  82. George says

    June 19, 2011 at 03:34

    Thank you, the problem has be solved

    Reply
  83. jason says

    June 20, 2011 at 17:00

    thanks a lot for you kindness i solve my problem of my notebook more bless to come cheer ups

    Reply
  84. Andrew says

    June 25, 2011 at 11:56

    Thanks mate, this worked for me. I had to disable flash module and switch from AHCI to ATA on a Dell.

    Reply
  85. Harish says

    July 7, 2011 at 05:52

    i disabled SATA native support. it worked.was using windows7 on compaq presario v3000. thanks a lot for the article…..

    Reply
    • mj says

      August 3, 2015 at 23:58

      how can you disabled the SATA native support on your presario v3000? I’m also have presario v300 but I cant find the SATA native support.

      Reply
  86. Gary says

    July 9, 2011 at 14:55

    It was funny i actually changed the SATA controller to IDE before i read this but as i was restarting, I started searching for more options incase that one failed, but it worked and this is the first site i opened and it was at the top so i knew i luckily did the right thing, Thanks alot for sharing with everyone thought, This works on an Acer TravelMate 6592

    Reply
  87. mohamed riyas says

    July 14, 2011 at 20:11

    i can’t find the bios in pheonix please help me

    Reply
  88. Peter says

    July 17, 2011 at 13:10

    Hi Rosco,
    I have a IBM ThinkPad T40 and it is giving me the problem.I just got a laptop and changed the harddrive and am not sure why its coming.

    Thanks,
    Peter

    Reply
  89. Abhi says

    July 19, 2011 at 06:38

    Thanks a ton. Your first fix worked like a charm. I had given up on all the data which I had collected over the last 4 years why my vista gave up and was unable to install Xp. You ROCK !!

    Reply
  90. Abhi says

    July 19, 2011 at 06:38

    Thanks a ton. Your first fix worked like a charm. I had given up on all the data which I had collected over the last 4 years when my vista gave up and was unable to install Xp. You ROCK !!

    Reply
  91. Peter says

    July 20, 2011 at 05:48

    Um I just swapped the harddrive and it worked!!!!

    Reply
  92. webleet says

    July 23, 2011 at 16:14

    I have a Gateway 450sx4 laptop I got from a reclamation sale with no hard drive. I put a HD(IDE) in and now I’m getting the unable to fin HD error and Error codes PXE-E61 andPXE-M0F. WinXPPro start up disks get me to Install WinXP hit enter, then no hd detected. I do not have the option to change ACHI to IDE. Phoenix Bios version 35.02.01.

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      July 23, 2011 at 22:50

      Hi webleet,
      This looks like a different problem to the one described in the article above.

      You should make sure the hard disk is physically installed and detected in the BIOS first before even attempting to start Windows setup. If it’s not in the BIOS, windows setup will never detect it.

      Take out the hard disk and see if it has any jumper pins on it. If it does it does, it should be configured as master. See diagram on the hard disk or manufacturers website for details.
      If it doesnt have jumpers or it’s already configured as master then pop it back into the laptop and switch on. Enter the BIOS and check if the drive is detected in system information. If not, reset the Bioks to factory defaults, restart and check again. If it’s still not detected then it’s possibly a hard disk problem or a system board problem with the laptop.

      Let me know how you get on.

      R.

      Reply
  93. Echo says

    July 27, 2011 at 01:24

    Hi, I also met the same problem during I install Windows Server 2003 on HP ProLiant LD140 G3 server. would you please tell me how to set the ATA in BIOS? The ways you said above, i tried, but failed. 🙁

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      July 28, 2011 at 22:45

      Hi Echo,
      You should not use the ATA fix here.

      You should obtain the SATA driver for your server and create a Windows CD with the driver on it as described in this article:
      https://proposedsolution.com/howto/create-windows-xp-cd-sata-drivers/

      Just use Windows 2003 CD where it says XP 🙂

      You can download the HP Proliant LD140 SATA drivers here:

      https://bit.ly/ou9n5G

      Rosco

      Reply
  94. C-sh@rp says

    July 30, 2011 at 02:35

    Great…it worked..

    Reply
  95. Reny says

    August 1, 2011 at 06:34

    Thank You Very Much!!!!! First solution worked 100%!!!! You were a very big help!!!! :*

    Reply
  96. Jason says

    August 6, 2011 at 21:14

    Hi,

    I have a compaq nc6320, and window setup could not find hard drive either with the blue screen message. I am also try the method of incorporating the BIOS, SATA and Chipset drivers updates into the window setup using nLite, but I am not sure what files to be loaded into the nLite. I have downloaded the drivers from the HP website and extracted, and the procedure to use the nlite is very confusing. Please help.

    Reply
  97. Nurul says

    August 7, 2011 at 22:07

    Thanks a lot! First solution work as charm for me. Thank you thank you

    Reply
  98. Urkone says

    August 8, 2011 at 05:07

    Thanks for the help worked like a charm

    Reply
  99. AZSarge says

    August 10, 2011 at 11:31

    I can change the setting in the BIOS from SATA – Enhanced to IDE – ‘Compatible’, but once done the computer will not reboot? Any suggestions?

    Reply
  100. Dennis Foo says

    August 14, 2011 at 10:13

    Thanks! Your solution works flawlessly on IBM T60 notebook.
    OS – Windows XP SP3.
    Go to BIOS -> config -> Serial ATA – (AHCI to Compatibility)

    Reply
  101. hugo says

    August 16, 2011 at 18:33

    thank you so much Bro you are the best

    Reply
  102. wayne says

    August 17, 2011 at 13:28

    you know what you are talking about, thanks

    Reply
  103. bugz_73 says

    August 19, 2011 at 09:53

    Thanks so much!! it helps me alot…

    Reply
  104. edwin woods says

    August 25, 2011 at 07:30

    Hi

    I removed the memory card from my computer to check it as I want to upgrade the memory but when I replaced it, I cant seem to boot windows XP!!From post screen, it asks me to enter disc so I put in my windows xp recovery disc but then I get the message about the set up did not… and dont know what to do…

    I have a foxconn motherboard 760gxk8mx but cant locate where to change sata to ide in cmos or bios.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also I dont have a floppy drive so cant download from there.

    thanks

    Edwin

    Reply
  105. Anonymous says

    August 26, 2011 at 04:07

    hi guyz..it didnt work for me…emaxx is my board..

    Reply
  106. sayham says

    August 28, 2011 at 08:06

    hi
    i have a Gigabyte G41M-ES2L motherboard.
    i am unable to find my sata configaration section.
    can you plz plz plz plz plz tell me where is it.
    where can i find my sata configaration section.

    Reply
  107. Nuno Thompson says

    September 1, 2011 at 07:34

    it work baby!!!!!!!!

    thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  108. Suresh Babu says

    September 6, 2011 at 15:22

    It worked….

    Thanks….

    Reply
  109. prasanth says

    September 20, 2011 at 15:07

    Hey guys my system recently formated after that my display driver got some problem, while browsing its freeze and system automatically restarts,,pls help us i tried a lot couldn’t fix it i tried registery clean up

    Reply
  110. lea says

    September 28, 2011 at 10:30

    Rosco, do you have any idea as to where exactly in a compaq presario cq40 bios setup i can change the controller to IDE? my laptop was working just fine, a few days back. i also just did a complete scan w/ no virus detected. after a few days of having my mom use my laptop, it just doesn’t start up and when i did a diagnostic on the hard disk, it says it doesn’t exist? will changing it to IDE do any good or does this mean that my os is simply corrupted? any thoughts? 🙁

    Reply
  111. Canvan says

    October 8, 2011 at 08:41

    Hi, Rosco,

    Your solution #1 works for me up to the step #6. But I could not change the BOIS setting back to SATA after the XP setup. If I do so, the blue screen will come back again saying the HD can not be found.

    Should I keep on using “compatibility” setting? How can I change back to use AHCI setting?

    Thanks,
    Van

    Reply
  112. Anonymous says

    November 9, 2011 at 12:22

    Worked like a dream! Thank you!

    Reply
    • Rodrigo says

      March 15, 2014 at 05:08

      I got home from work yesterday afnetroon and mowed the lawn and blew leaves before the rain came today. After I mowed my lawn, I went next door to my neighbors house and mowed his lawn and blew the leaves off his property. I slipped a pay it forward card under his door mat when I was finished. He came over and thanked me for what I’d done, and also asked me about pay it forward. I often do things for other people, but yesterday it felt a little different because it gave me the opportunity to tell him about paying it forward; also in hopes that it would have a chain reaction and many lives would be effected by such a positive and simple notion of paying it forward .

      Reply
  113. Anonymous says

    November 16, 2011 at 07:23

    Thax dude your suggestion very helful for me o love you

    Reply
  114. trevor says

    November 16, 2011 at 18:58

    hi i need help finding my drivers and putting onto floppy ive looked and looked and im not having any luck im kinda a noob plz help i have a soltek motherboard and a nvidia nforce2 ive been trying to reformat for 4 days and i keep getting the cant find hard disk drive msg PLZ HELP

    Reply
  115. Jackie says

    November 17, 2011 at 12:30

    You are the best. It works after follow your instruction. You save my time a lot. Vista is no good at all

    Reply
  116. trevor says

    November 18, 2011 at 18:50

    ok so now ive found my driver (i think) and i hit f6 get prompted to put in the floppy and when i do i get “the file txtsetup.oem could not be found” what now?

    Reply
  117. tyler says

    November 30, 2011 at 07:29

    thx man first solution worked great

    Reply
  118. teddy says

    December 2, 2011 at 11:51

    simply brilliant !!! thank you !

    Reply
  119. swapnil says

    December 13, 2011 at 12:03

    i have the compaq pc having foxconn motherboard on it.i m getting the same error with my original hdd which comes with my pc.but when i attach another hdd it works fine.
    but my older hdd still undetectable in bios also.plz plz help me i have imp data on it

    Reply
  120. Trish says

    December 17, 2011 at 07:24

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Edward says

      March 15, 2014 at 04:22

      September 20, 2013 at 10:49 amElkeFeuerThanks, Liz! Writading a bio is usuadally the last thing on people’s minds. They’re usuadally in exitceadment mode that their book is going to be pubadlished. Color me guilty.

      Reply
  121. Josh says

    December 26, 2011 at 15:38

    OK so I followed Solution 1 and was able to install Windows just fine that way, but now when I switch the setting back to AHCI my laptop gives me a BSOD when attempting to load Windows. Switching it back to “Compatibility” mode allows me to boot Windows normally. Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • Rob L says

      February 15, 2012 at 16:02

      Josh, same problem here – MS KB advises this is (likely) a missing driver issue. Windows still does not have the specific SATA comptible drivers installed at this point.

      Reply
  122. Marcos says

    January 5, 2012 at 09:27

    Se for servidor, utilize o CD de instalação do server. EX: IBM que tem o server guide, através dele consegue fazer a instalação normalmente, sem o problema de driver.

    Reply
  123. Anonymous says

    January 10, 2012 at 21:59

    Problem solved
    thanks
    (solition1: Change the mode of the SATA controller from AHCI to IDE or Compatibility)

    Reply
  124. vimukthi says

    January 13, 2012 at 03:09

    thnx

    Reply
  125. bas says

    January 21, 2012 at 20:54

    great

    Reply
  126. Sham says

    February 10, 2012 at 05:15

    hello sir i follow your step to solve my problem but i am not find any setting in my BIOS settings please tell me the solution according to my motherboard as uner noted:
    ASUS motherboard P5KPL-AM/PS G31

    Reply
  127. Rob L says

    February 15, 2012 at 13:53

    Thanks so much Ross – I thought I had a dead HDD. Solution 1 on the money! Cheers.

    Reply
  128. Suresh says

    February 23, 2012 at 04:12

    my Problem has solved now , thanks for you advise

    Reply
  129. Samoun says

    March 6, 2012 at 17:49

    Your first solution work for my laptop acer aspire 5710z. Fist I can’t set to IDE mode, but after I update my BIOS, I can. Then I can continue set up windows xp normally.

    Reply
  130. Deepak says

    March 11, 2012 at 09:58

    Thanks very much it worked.

    Reply
  131. Irfan says

    April 3, 2012 at 13:24

    Thanks bro it worked

    Reply
  132. Tony says

    April 6, 2012 at 00:55

    please help me , if i change sata drive to raid or id or inverse , i lose my data on all of hard disk?

    Reply
  133. HelpPleaSE!! says

    April 8, 2012 at 03:33

    i have problems with step 2

    Locate the Serial ATA or SATA configuration section
    I’ve seen this section called ‘On Chip Config’ on some Phoenix Award BIOS
    On Lenovo/IBM ThinkPads it’s in Config > Serial ATA (Sata

    I cant locate the serial ata or sata for my phoenix, there is nothing close to chip config or anything, ive checked all the options im tottaly lost.. please help me and future people who read this article.

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      April 8, 2012 at 07:54

      Hi!

      What’s your PC make/model no.?

      R.

      Reply
  134. Moro says

    April 11, 2012 at 03:43

    Worked with an Asus. Thank you.

    Reply
  135. thoma says

    April 13, 2012 at 21:04

    what am i missing? I have an old Gateway mt6705 that I reformatted the hard drive on in hopes of never,ever seeing Vista again and loading a clean copy of XP pro. But after getting the dreaded blue screen and message ‘hard drive not found’ your solution seemed the ideal fix. But on start-up I can’t do anything to change my Phoenix Bios 77.11 besides maybe changing the system time or date.
    What am I doing wrong? How do I edit the bios?

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      April 13, 2012 at 23:44

      Hi Thoma..
      Seems a bit strange that you can’t edit the BIOS. Can you send me a photo of the screen?

      Before that, make sure are upgraded to the latest version of the BIOS….you should find BIOS upgrades on the Gateway Support site for your model. I believe the latest is 77.12.

      After that, send me a pic if you still can’t edit anything.

      R.

      Reply
  136. Luciano says

    May 3, 2012 at 11:57

    Solved!!! Thanks a lot 🙂

    Reply
  137. Jwalin says

    May 3, 2012 at 19:50

    Thank you so much. I own T61 and your post was very helpful. Resolved with option 1. Keep up the good work …

    Reply
  138. kasaye says

    May 7, 2012 at 05:56

    i would like to ….

    Reply
  139. Nedim says

    May 23, 2012 at 01:56

    Thank you very much. I have also a T61 and I solved the problem with Solution 1! Clever idea!

    Reply
  140. Tanzim says

    May 30, 2012 at 17:25

    Solution 1 worked on Lenovo T60

    Reply
  141. nazmul says

    June 7, 2012 at 14:35

    I pressed during xp set up “To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, pressR”. now my laptop is showing no hard drive on it…its win7 based laptop…plz,solve

    Reply
  142. Syd says

    June 15, 2012 at 04:59

    Thanks solution 1 worked for me

    Reply
  143. mtvb says

    July 8, 2012 at 01:13

    Thank you so much. Solution 1 worked.

    Reply
  144. Laxman Dangol says

    July 13, 2012 at 04:46

    I have Toshiba Dynabook SS L11 17L/4 laptop and bios config is 1Raid-0, when I install windowsxp bootable cd then display this message Setup could not find any hard drive.

    any solution

    Reply
  145. trips says

    July 13, 2012 at 09:29

    you’re excellent, the best and thank you very much

    Reply
  146. Md says

    July 14, 2012 at 16:33

    I tried The Way You Show And It Worked Great. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
    KNOWLEDGE NEVER ENDS …

    Reply
  147. NL says

    July 15, 2012 at 21:30

    we just got a used Toshiba satellite L40 Laptop(PSL40E) with no OS on it. In the set up, I can not find anywhere to change the HHD controller. Once the laptop is up and running, there is C:\> is there anyway to get to the control from there?

    Reply
    • Rosco says

      July 15, 2012 at 22:08

      NL, Can you explain how you get to a C:\ prompt?

      That fact that you are getting that far indicates that the hard disk is being detected (although C: could be mapping to a different drive such as your DVD).

      What’s happening with Windows setup?

      R.

      Reply
  148. NL says

    July 16, 2012 at 06:28

    When I turn it on it show the Toshiba/Intel screen, the flashes past a windows 98 screen and then goes black and the screen reads;
    Microsoft (R) Windows 98
    (C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1999.
    C:\>_

    When I run Windows Pro with SP2, from the CD/DVD it runs windows set up, loading most if not all files and then comes to a blue screen that ends in:
    stop:0x0000007E (0xc0000005, 0xF75DD0BF, 0xF7A29208, 0xFA28F08)
    pci.sys – address F75DD0BF base at F75D6000, DateStamp 3b7d855c

    thanks

    Reply
    • NL says

      August 22, 2012 at 20:06

      I found a fix. To get pass the error above, I used nLite to create a Windows XP with SP3 setup DVD. SP3 has the needed drivers for the sata hard drive and loads XP with no problems. I also wanted to add a note about the drivers. On my Toshiba, I had to install the drivers in the order given by Toshiba per an installation instructions pdf. I found at;

      https://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/download_drivers_bios.jsp

      Thanks for the help.

      Reply
      • chad painter says

        September 23, 2012 at 10:38

        How do you make the disc??

        Reply
  149. rasta says

    July 21, 2012 at 04:56

    M8,work’s like a charm.
    Ty.

    Reply
  150. Hengel says

    July 29, 2012 at 13:23

    Cheers mate!

    Reply
  151. Jayanta says

    August 7, 2012 at 19:32

    I can’t find ACHI or IDE in BIOS. I am getting onboard devices—>Integrated NIC or MiniPCI status and Modem enables. Can’t find anything so that I can change to SATA drive. I have windows XP CD and using dell inspiron 6000 laptop. Can you please suggest what should I do or where can I download SATA files so that I can use F6 and then F2 option as suggested in option 2.

    Thanks….

    Reply
  152. Vij says

    August 11, 2012 at 13:06

    Thanks. Still works after all these years! Disabled SATA on HP Pavilion laptop and was able to instal XP which was corrupt!

    Reply
  153. RAJ PANVAL says

    August 22, 2012 at 12:05

    I WANT TO INSTALL WIN 7 ON THE SYSTEM. WIN Xp getting installed properly. but problem with wind 7. There is no compatibility/ATA option in lenovo K series desktops.Only DISBALE,IDE,ACHI,SCSI Options available there? how can i solve problem?

    Thnx,
    RAJ

    Reply
  154. anand says

    August 26, 2012 at 05:25

    I have Toshiba SaTELLITE pRO a 205 lAPTOP. i WANT TO FORMAT FROM VISTA TO WINDOWS XP. bUT HARD DIST NOT DETECT F3 TO QUIT. hOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM. i CHECK IN BIOS ALSO BUT NO SATA CONFIGURATION IN MY BIOS HOW TO SOLVE IT PLEASE HELP ME.

    Reply
  155. ALI says

    September 1, 2012 at 09:48

    thnx its work

    Reply
  156. Seth says

    September 2, 2012 at 21:52

    I have a laptop Compaq Presario R3000 , & I enter into Setup & there is nothing that says where I can change the BIOS from ACHI to IDE. Please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙁

    Reply
  157. Victor Bird says

    September 9, 2012 at 10:54

    Thanks a lot for a post. Worked like a charm!
    To bad I still need to have some kind of Window$ on my machine parallel with Linux for compatability reasons…

    Reply
  158. Abu B siddique says

    September 12, 2012 at 23:44

    really good thank you

    Reply
  159. chad painter says

    September 23, 2012 at 12:45

    I have a Compaq presario sr2010nx preloaded with XP SP2
    The restore cd is XP SP2, but I had SP3 installed on it.
    One day when I fired it up it said “disk boot failure please install……”
    I ran the OS CD to repair XP and when it came to the part when I press R (to repair) ,it gave the “no hard disk drive found…” error.
    doesnt the XP SP2 restore cd have all the drivers needed? And my PC doesnt have the “ribbon” connection anyway it has the newer smaller connections.
    Is the data on the Hard Drive salvageable????

    Reply
  160. Venkat.G says

    September 23, 2012 at 22:54

    Thank you for the help!!

    Reply
  161. vivek says

    September 26, 2012 at 04:38

    Hi Rosco,
    this is vivek. I am having a hp pavillion dv6700 . i got this problem – setup did not find any hard disk installed in blah blah blah,… i followed the procedure of nlite but then the last stage of making ISO did not come. what shall i do?
    i mailed you also …please help me out…

    Reply
  162. Vivek says

    September 30, 2012 at 23:21

    My laptop is hp pavillion dv6700 . There is no option to change from sata to IDE in Phoenix bios. How shall I do it. Tell me please.
    I did the n lite process also but when I put the new cd which I made , it does asks to boot from cd. Just a black screen and nothing happens

    Reply
  163. albino lumi says

    October 15, 2012 at 12:32

    thank you so much , the information was very good , passing from AHCI to IDE

    Reply
  164. George Lass says

    October 22, 2012 at 23:08

    I only had the option to disable SATA in the BIOS. Didn’t help though. My solution: Install Win XP on an IDE drive. Don’t activate Windows yet. Next, install your SATA drive as a slave (additional drive). Windows will find it and install the drivers needed. Boot using Ubuntu live CD. Clone the IDE drive onto the SATA drive using the dd command in a terminal window. Bingo. (Alot of extra work, but I had no alternative) My bios must be a stinker.

    Reply
  165. iftikhar haider says

    November 7, 2012 at 23:25

    i can not find the the solution of my problem. I am not finding the serial SATA option in BIOS setup of Server 7800 series.

    Reply
  166. Kerby says

    November 18, 2012 at 16:45

    I have found the SATA driver for solution 2 (no option to disable on my Conmpaq Mini) but when I press S to select it from my USB flash drive, I get ‘Setup could not find a floppy drive on your machine to load OEM drivers from floppy disk.’

    I don’t have a floppy drive! Help!

    Reply
  167. mhigyh says

    November 21, 2012 at 23:35

    hey sir, i got the same problem. i got a hp 530 notebook laptop.. i cant fix it, always crashing,. pls help me. tnx

    Reply
  168. uttam says

    December 19, 2012 at 22:40

    sir, thank you so much for your advice. i solve my problem in dell vostro 1400. i have a more problem, my battery charging light is flashing continuously(orange colour). what can i do? also i want to update my bios A07 to latest. can you tell me how to update my bios safely. thank you.

    Reply
  169. Mary says

    January 1, 2013 at 12:01

    Hi, I tried what you have posted here and changed the Serial ATA (SATA) to compatibility , I have an IBM ThinkPad T60, but it didn’t work, it kept giving me the message “NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl+ Alt+Del to restart.” Any suggestions?
    Thank you

    Reply
  170. madocter says

    January 6, 2013 at 11:25

    THANKS bro you saved my life you cant imagine,
    i buyed my first dedicated and this post helped me to instal lwindows server on it me and my users will be happy

    Reply
  171. meidan says

    January 8, 2013 at 03:27

    Hi,
    I did the second suggestion, it works till i hit the R button and then i get a screen with:
    1:c:\windows
    2:d\windows
    which windows installation would you like to log onto (to cancel press ENTER)?
    when i write 1, i get a list of commands and i have no idea where to go from here.

    i need to mention that i have a Asus P5S800 and windows xp home edition. i have 2 HDs 1Tr & 75 GB.

    btw: on the floppy i have a list of 4:
    SRV 2003 SIS RAID/IDE Controller
    WIN XP 32 bit SIS RAID/IDE Controller
    WIN 2000 SIS RAID/IDE Controller
    WINDOWS 64 bit SIS RAID/IDE Controller

    Since i have windows xp, i am selecting win xp 32 bit.

    Really appreciate your help!!!
    Thanks!

    Reply
  172. Robert S. says

    January 18, 2013 at 01:42

    I was at my whits end with my Asus ee PC trying to re-install XP – This worked for me! Thank You!

    Reply
  173. Miguel says

    January 18, 2013 at 17:19

    Excellent, it saved me a lot of time! cheers

    Reply
  174. ank91 says

    January 26, 2013 at 04:09

    hey-admin- my notebook dont have FLOPPY DISK DRIVE-
    HOW DO I INSERT FLOPPY DURING SETUP

    Reply
  175. sobia says

    January 28, 2013 at 07:47

    u solved my problem.,saved my time,,thanku so much,plz keep posting such valuable n worth articles

    Reply
  176. joel says

    February 10, 2013 at 19:01

    great…awesome ,solve my problem…yahoo

    Reply
  177. Nigel says

    February 18, 2013 at 02:32

    Found your information after Google search. Was trying to re-install Win XP Pro on an old HP Compaq nx6310 from CD and your tip worked. Terrific! Thank you so much – much time and possible expense saved!

    Reply
  178. Fester says

    February 25, 2013 at 20:24

    Thank you very much for the tip, that saved me a lot of trouble. But would it greatly change my laptop by disabling the SATA?

    Reply
  179. Meathead says

    February 27, 2013 at 21:20

    This webpage was the first hit via google for this problem.

    Followed solution 1 and seemed to do the trick – thanks! Yes there’s still some of us out there tasked with reinstalling WinXP 😛

    These settings were changed in the BIOS of a HP Compaq 8510w laptop:

    System Configuration -> Device Configuration
    Parallel Port Mode = ECP
    SATA Native Mode = Disabled

    I also set the boot order to HDD = First, Optical Drive = Second. If in doubt hit F9 on boot and select your Optical Drive to load first.

    Thanks again

    Reply
  180. joseph jp says

    March 18, 2013 at 02:18

    yoooohhh man your great.. installed linux and tried to install windows xp again after which this issue came.. your solution worked on my acer travel mate..
    thanks aaaaaa loooooooot

    Reply
  181. Nitin says

    March 31, 2013 at 02:18

    Option1 worked perfect!

    Reply
  182. Mario says

    June 2, 2013 at 09:32

    Hi Rosco,
    I’m trying to recover some files from a defunct computer with this error. I’m trying to work through your solutions, but the options you present are not available on my machine. I have a DELL 4600 desktop. Bios is Phoenix ROM Bios Plus Version 1.10 A07
    I don’t show the alternatives on the solutions you present as option 1, and when I tried 2, I’m having trouble locating the appropriate files as the drivers I have extracted don’t seem to have the files I’m looking for.
    Any specific help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks ahead!

    Reply
  183. Musavir says

    July 2, 2013 at 13:04

    hey guys,. if u will not find the option to change the mode from ahci to ide,. then there is a option to disable sata,. just diable that and restart ur installing ,. it will get done,. if not can call me on +91-9819000732

    Reply
  184. hp user says

    July 7, 2013 at 05:56

    Thank you, very helpful article!

    Reply
  185. Khalil alkiswani says

    July 20, 2013 at 19:40

    Thank you so much man,,, this is really help me

    Reply
  186. Tarak says

    July 29, 2013 at 18:27

    Thanks buddy .You helped a lot….

    Reply
  187. RW says

    September 19, 2013 at 23:18

    Cheers

    Reply
    • RW says

      September 19, 2013 at 23:19

      v

      Reply
  188. rj says

    September 22, 2013 at 15:44

    i v only option as follows:

    onboard ide operatemode : disble , compatible, enhnced…

    then below dat: s-ata + p-ata , s-ata, p-ata…

    didnt find any achi mode dat u guyz r keep on saying…
    My mother board is “Asus P5gz- mx”
    it is of year 2005….

    Reply
  189. Abbas says

    September 30, 2013 at 15:18

    Thanks a lot dude, just disabled the native sata support n setup has initiated, I spent about good few hours to figure out the solution but thanks to ur suggestions, u r a star….

    Reply
  190. Robert Tipping says

    November 5, 2013 at 10:35

    Thanx life saver got as far as changing drive in bios (compatible)was able to boot into C:\windows from there and able to execute fixmbr -fixboot thank you so much

    Reply
  191. Awais Awan says

    November 26, 2013 at 22:33

    Hi Dear,
    Me from Pakistan, I also facing same problem when I read this information and apply the same in my HP Laptop Compaq 6910p. Error is resolve and window xp installed in my computer.
    Again Thankx alox to your goodself.

    Reply
  192. Deepak says

    November 27, 2013 at 16:57

    Thanks for the solution, it help me, god bless you

    Reply
  193. vali says

    November 28, 2013 at 08:50

    thnx solution 1 works for me.

    Reply
  194. Nano says

    January 19, 2014 at 11:14

    It worked thank you! life saver!

    Reply
  195. Kathiresan says

    February 24, 2014 at 04:18

    Hi Rosco,
    I’m trying to recover some files from a defunct computer with this error. I’m trying to work through your solutions, but the options you present are not available on my machine. I have a DELL 4600 desktop. Bios is Phoenix ROM Bios Plus Version 1.10 A07
    I don’t show the alternatives on the solutions you present as option 1, and when I tried 2, I’m having trouble locating the appropriate files as the drivers I have extracted don’t seem to have the files I’m looking for.
    Any specific help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks ahead!

    Reply
  196. Youka says

    March 22, 2014 at 01:53

    thankx
    my problem was solved on toshiba by SATA drivers

    Reply
  197. Bob Pro says

    April 23, 2014 at 08:09

    Resetting the bios Sata to IDE helped me..
    Thanks

    Reply
  198. Adrienne says

    June 30, 2014 at 12:08

    Hey,
    I just bought a new ASUS Notebook PC and I want to install a disc that has practice exams on it for me to take on the computer. When I go to install the disc it takes me through the whole installing process
    1. Do you want to install this onto your computer?
    Publisher: Spearhead Global Inc
    Application: TherapyEd’s NPTE Review and Study Guide

    2. It asks me for the installing preferences (shortcut and whatever)

    3. and then gives me an error. “The application could not be installed because the installer file is damaged. Try obtaining a new installer file from the application author.”

    I tried to install a similar CD and that same error occurred, but the place gave me a brand new computer because it was still under warranty. I tried to install the new disc on my brand new computer and it worked with no other programs installed on the computer.

    Do I need to delete a program that I currently have downloaded (Adobe Air?)?
    Any thoughts on how to fix this would be awesome!! Thanks

    Reply
  199. Jac says

    July 31, 2014 at 07:17

    Thanks, I have a hp compaq and I disabled native mode and it worked fine saved me a new laptop

    Reply
  200. ALMAS.TSM says

    August 12, 2014 at 13:30

    ThankYou so much. step 1 worked 100% on my acer aspire-4738Z.
    thanks.

    Reply
  201. Thamiso says

    October 9, 2014 at 03:15

    Thanks, step 1 works without any problems.

    Reply
  202. PHP Decoders says

    October 24, 2014 at 12:03

    You are a life saver! Solution 1 did the trick for me. Great article.

    Reply
  203. Sandeep says

    December 21, 2014 at 04:31

    Hi,Thanks for the solution.

    My system came up with the error “NTLDR missing” I did some settings in BIOS couldn’t resolve the issue, Also tried to reinstall windows XP but HDD was been recognised in BIOS but used to come up with “0 capacity”.

    I changed the mode from AHCI to IDE, rebooted the computer and I was able to login and my issue was resolved. Thanks for all your help.

    Take care…
    Sandeep

    Reply
  204. Femii says

    May 30, 2015 at 14:13

    I am having a Greatwall 630 notebook and i was trying to setup a windows XP 2005 on it using a SATA drive. But i was getting this error ‘Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed’ …
    How do i locate the SATA configuration in BIOS settings on this machine?

    Reply
  205. kirsh says

    June 24, 2015 at 00:25

    I have HP Z400 model with SAS HDD connected. I am not able to install Windows XP OS CD. In BIOS AHCI changed IDE. After that also facing HDD not detecting error during the installtion time.

    Reply
  206. Wiharjo says

    July 10, 2015 at 09:51

    Thanks a lot for this problem solving. Few days I was sick of this, then problem ended by follow this tutorial.

    Reply
  207. in chennai for wedding|wedding photographers in chennai|good wedding photographers chennai|professional wedding photographers in chennai|best wedding photographers chennai|professional photographers for wedding in chennai|chennai based wedding photographe says

    September 17, 2015 at 13:04

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  208. jeremy karanja says

    June 21, 2016 at 02:34

    Thanks so much it worked for me…

    Reply
  209. ToddP says

    November 13, 2016 at 04:54

    DO you actually have the instructions to install the Scsi drives as you stated in your title that you seemed to completely failed to put in you article?

    Reply
  210. CARLOS ACOSTA says

    December 8, 2016 at 19:54

    Thanks, works perfect

    Reply
  211. Waqar Ahmad says

    March 16, 2017 at 02:38

    Assalam o Alaikum Sir. I am very thankful to you sir for solving my problem. My laptop don’t show hard drive during instalation of window. with the help of above sloution noe my laptop show drives.
    Thank you sir

    Reply
  212. Anonymous says

    January 16, 2018 at 02:18

    Hi could anyone help me my windows xp installation progress is not getting ahead of 26% it is stuck on checking disk

    Reply
  213. Anonymous says

    March 14, 2018 at 22:35

    Good i solve my problem thank you

    Reply
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  215. Erance Magoro says

    January 23, 2020 at 09:29

    Thank you very much. It works

    Reply

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