Windows installer not picking up hard drives

[vii]

I'm trying to install windows XP on my friends new laptop that came pre-loaded with vista.

It boots from the CD then gives me a screen telling me that it "Doesn't detect any hard drives".

Help please, the guy keeps bothering me and I'm pretty sure he's not going away until I help him.

[Azimuth]

Vista is hiding them away because Vista is a naughty boy and Vista doesn't want to share hard drives with that smelly XP from down the block.

You know, if you help him out this time, he's only going to keep coming back whenever he has a problem with his PC. You're only enabling the cycle of abuse.

[vii]

I know, but he's desperate and he's one of the few people I tolerate enough to call "friend", and apparently thats what these so called "friends" do for each other.

I'm looking to format the laptop and only put XP on it. I'm getting ****ed at this damn laptop!

[Frozenfireside]

I'm trying to install windows XP on my friends new laptop that came pre-loaded with vista.

It boots from the CD then gives me a screen telling me that it "Doesn't detect any hard drives".

Help please, the guy keeps bothering me and I'm pretty sure he's not going away until I help him.

Pretty sure you need a SATA driver. Open the HDD compartment and see if it's a SATA drive first though. No you will not void your warranty if there is no sticker protecting the screws of the drive.

Then use a floppy disk to load the SATA driver (available on the manufactures website) and it will see it.

[Azimuth]

Floppy disk rofl.

I haven't seen a laptop with a floppy disk drive in about four years.

But he's probably right about the SATA hard drive. You'd think they'd have patched that into the Windows XP installer by now. It's been - what? four, five years? - since SATA drives starting turning up everywhere.

[Frozenfireside]

We had a USB floppy drive in the workshop where I worked. Used it maybe 100 times when Vista came out.

I'm sure there is a SATA driver built into SP3 but the easiest and most likely way to fix this is to use Nlite and add the driver to your install disk.

My brain is not working. maybe it's the meds but I'm making some silly mistakes that I keep having to edit.

[vii]

I could easily get a newer XP CD. Would that help? Does the newer versions of XP have support on the CD?

[Frozenfireside]

The only issue is with the CDkey. You can't use a SP1 cdkey with a SP2 install disk and so on.
Try with SP3 but you could get this install done by tonight if you find nlite.

[vii]

CD keys arent a big worry... he does have a valid XP cd key, so he isnt stealing anything and seriously, to get it done I could easily find a key...

[Chevron]

I heard of what Azimuth mentioned about vista hiding drives. Maybe just get a linux live cd and use it to format the drives. Not sure if vista can hide the drives from linux though...

[ShadowMaster]

The only issue is with the CDkey. You can't use a SP1 cdkey with a SP2 install disk and so on.
Try with SP3 but you could get this install done by tonight if you find nlite.

Really?! Guess my SP2 disc failed the not-allowing-SP1-keys class...

You could also try burning a new disc with the drivers on it, you can do that but I don't know how. Try googling inlining drivers in XP disc.

[Frozenfireside]

There are exceptions to the rule. SP2B was really finniky about CDkeys.

Nlite will do it for you. Hence I keep banging on about it :-/

[Necro101]

Using Windows XP SP2 will do the trick.

[tinman]

hey man

I had this exact problem with my new lenovo thinkpad last night. I got it from work brand new and packing Vista business and 1 gig of ram.

I when downgrading to xp I had the same problem, it load the files and just before going into the installation it would say something like "could not detect hard drive". I googled around and discovered that all I had to do was go into the bios and change the harddrive setting from Sata to "compatible" which worked for me.

hope it helps

[vii]

Thanks to everyone.
I got XP installed.
Now the things drivers wont install...
Oh my word, I almost sent it flying last night.

[Frozenfireside]

erm that might be one of those 'Vista only' laptops. I've tried with one of those but gave up in the end.
They are tricky to get XP installed on and you have to work for it.