Windows XP - SATA Drive Installation Problem

Well, normally, windows OEM disks only work with the original HD in the original PC, and it will prevent it of being installed or validated. If it's a full version, so that's ok.

About the HD, have you checked if your motherboard connections for SATA controllers are not switched, i.e., are there SATA connections 1 and 2, or something like this? If so, have you tryied the other one and see if the BIOS recognizes it as master? Juts a though...

Thank you for the information. I have made progress. I re-connected to port-0, removed old HD, and also found in the BIOS a setting for RAID configuration. I changed it from "auto..." to 'combination...'

One of these changes corrected Win setup and allowed install to proceed. When I logged into the new Win XP account the desktop was empty; except for recycle bin. All normal programs seem to be on the Start menu.

My PC is a Dell purchased in 2002, and I assume the Windows disk they supplied is a full install. I am going to try again-

I forgot how painful this could be...I am also debating trying to find a good registry cleaner, and attempting to salvage my current installation, rather than starting over.

Thank you for the advice

Dell in many times sells OEM windowes, not full ones... I was lucky to buy one with a full version.

Yeah, I'm getting too old to deal with these windows re-installations... I really think my next computer is gonna be a mac...

You've had so much work, why to stuck with recovering? Be happy with your new windows installation!

About registry cleaning software, I use regclean. Freeware. Google for it. Works just fine.

hi there,,

not sure if its the same problem i had or not,, but something to look into,, my windows xp cd was a older one,, (sp1), it would not install on pc that i updated mb and hd,, after many hrs of scratching head and checking, swapping,, etc,, i found out that you HAVE TO HAVE a newer ver of xp to install on newer components,, the store i got the stuff from,, helped out and traded my xp cd for a new ver, (sp3), and it all installed just like it was suppose to,, was glad, didn't want to upgrade to vista!!

hope this saves someone from the hair loss and frustration,,,,

have a great day!!

Thanks for the advice... I am actually logged in using my new install of Windows, and have the finish line within sight.

I have learned 2 lessons.

1. I have the gift to easily find the hardest way to accomplish a task.

2. Microsoft has not improved the process in 20+years of SW development. I almost prefer the old days of installing 11 Floppies to get DOS and Windows3.11 running

In case it helps others here is what I found on my PC:

I now have 2 woking SATA harddrives (HD) Both have bootable Win XP partitions, however I can only install Win XP and/or boot from the drive physically connected to PORT 0 on my motherboard- Do not know if this is normal, but I cannot find any boot options to allow me to choose a boot HD upon power-up, thus I have to switch cables before booting pn other HD.

Also I have to modify a my BIOS setting for RAID controller based on which HD I have connected to port 0. Very inconvienent for booting between old and new HD, however this is temporary since soon I will wipe clean my old HD and make it the data disk.

Thanks for that heads up. I was just looking at the xp cds last night and thinking about upgrading.

I had the same problem, mine was the jumper setting on the drive. Set mine to cable select and it came up.

1. The BIOS has to be informed to recognise the SATA ports as bootable devices:

The following example is taken from my own PC, and it may slightly vary on yours:

- To reset recent faulty settings:

BIOS\Load Optimizes Defaults

BIOS\Load Fail-Safe Defaults

- To optimise the BIOS to boot the system from the XP setup CD-ROM:

BIOS\Advanced BIOS Features\

First Boot Device\CDROM

Second Boot Device\Hard Disk

Third Boot Device\Floppy (or another source for SATA driver add-on to the XP setup - as the case may be - mine came on a floppy)

- To Check-up the BIOS for operation of a SATA Hard-Disk:

BIOS\Advanced BIOS Features\ - Bootable Add-in Device\ Onchip SATA RAID

2. Before restart, put the XP setup disk in the CD-ROM drive, and the SATA-Driver in the Floppy-drive.

3. As the boot sequence starts, the screen will call "Press (a required key) to boot from CD" - do so

4. As the CDROM will start loading, the screen will call "Press F6 if you install third-party SCSI or RAID driver..." - do so

5. After some files are loaded, the screen will call "To specify additional SCSI adapters... press S" - do so

6. Choose the option "VIA (or your specified - as the case may be) Serial ATA for Windows XP" - do so

7. The Floppy (or your specified drive) will load the SATA driver, then, the same screen will appear - Press ENTER (bottom option) - to continue loading the setup files

8. Only now can Windows XP setup recognize your SATA Hard-Disk as the system disk, and be installed there.

9. When the option arises, do yourself a favor, and divide the disk volume into two partitions: C:\ for the system and applications, and D:\ for the your work-files, downloads, etc. - Failing to do so is a common mistake, that lot of people do, by letting the whole volume be only one partition, C:\, and once this partition gets corrupt of fragmented over time - they have impossible time trying to salvage their dear work-files and precious downloads

- See how your PC will display similar notes and options - and try to comply according to the guide above. - It should be quite similar

"do yourself a favor, and divide the disk volume into two partitions:"

Thank you for the good advice... As I stated above I tend to find the hard way.

In fact I am embarrassed to admit, that I actually have installed Win XP twice over the past week. Reason being; that after confirming my new install worked, I thought I would be better off re-partitioning back to 1 big drive. So I did, and started over (again)

I agree with your statement regarding dividing, and originally set up my PC that way. I changed to 1 big partition only because I will be using a second HD for data.

Now let me ask: If you had a new 500GB and a 4 year old 160GB HD which would you use for data and which for WinXP? I would bet I did it wrong

The operating system and all those applications that a normal person would ever need can hardly exeed anything above 30 Gigs. Beyond that, it's also a nightmare to checkdisk and defrag on a regular basis, so it's about 30 for the system and 470 for your own documents.

In case you have some priority in your documents, you may divide the big volume left, into three or more partitions, somewhat guided with the following order of size:

Smallest files are text, then come Vector-Graphics and MIDI files. Bigger are Photographs. Even bigger are Audio files (starting with WMA as smallest audio, ending with CDA or WAV as the biggest audio) then Animation runtimes, and the biggest are Video files:

Smallest of those, are WMV, a bit bigger are DivX and MP4, Bigger still are VCD, Even Bigger are MPEG-2, and The Biggest Encoded video are DV files. The biggers possible video files are raw YUV capture - with some 48 Gb per one hour of high quality video.

Multiply those, if you're talking about Hi-Definition video. The above video formats were as per broadcast-quality TV-type (NTSC-box files are 640x480 pixels, at 30 Frames per second, and Wide-Screen NTSC files are 720x480 pixels at 30 Frames per second).

Thanks for your last piece of advice about partitioning. I discovered that by default all of my data (mostly "My Documents") is on C drive which is 15GB and now full -- while D drive 40GB has nothing on it. Can I simply move "my documents" to D drive? Do I need to reset any defaults? Thanks

Yes. On Win XP, go to:

Start / right-click on My Documents / properties / Move / (press the + sign next to drive D;/ or whichever you like), and choose where to move your "My Documents" directory to.

By default, Windows directs your newly created documents to :C:\Documents and Settings\assigned user\My Documents, but you can change this, as shown above

Be careful however: True, now your precious documents are safe from a crash or contamination on drive C:/ but keep in mind they are placed and automatically directed now to D:/ (or wherever you assigned them to), so that you are alerted to it, before, say, you decide to to clean or wipe that drive or destination, for whatever reason !

Thanks Yuval. Greatly appreciated!

I recently discovered the C drive 15GB full and the D drive partition of 40GB empty. Can I simply move "My Documents" to the D drive and properly store data in the D partition? Do I need to reset any defaults? Thanks