HP Laptop - Can't install Windows - No Hard drive detected

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JookyOne

Limp Gawd
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Jan 7, 2010
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I'm attempting to help a friend of mine who's laptop has been on the fritz as of late. It appears the OEM hard drive has had it and some system diagnostic tools on board confirmed the hard drive was on its way out. Picked up a new SATA drive and plugged it in last night and booted from a Windows XP disk. Once all the Windows components load and you have options to Repair or Install, if you select install a new screen displays stating that there is no hard drive detected. This was also the case when I tried to re-install Windows on the original OEM hard drive. However, from the BIOS you can use a system utility to check the hard drive and that operates just fine. I feel like there must be some driver or other component I'm missing that isn't loading up when booting from the Windows CD. Can anyone help?
 
Is there an option in the bios to switch from AHCI to IDE ?


My first guess is that the SATA port is set to AHCI mode and your Win XP disc doesn't have AHCI support. This is pretty normal.
 
I looked around in the BIOS settings but I don't recall seeing anything about switching the modes for the hard drive. I'll double check that though. If it's any help...the hard drive uses some sort of adapter that attaches over the SATA terminals on the drive and then connects to the laptop. The adapter takes the regular SATA connections and turns them into a bunch of pins...I hear this is commonplace, but I don't mess with my own laptop that much to know myself.
 
that is common place.....on older laptops.


Chances are yes, it is a simple setting in the BIOS, only HP I've got is AHCI by default.
 
Well I just surveyed the bios again and see nothing in there about AHCI or IDE or any hard drive settings for that matter. Would a Windows 7 install disk possibly have the drivers this is missing? Any other ideas?

Laptop is a HP Pavilion dv6589us
 
I would download nlite and integrate the laptop's chipset drivers into the XP disc. Either that, or find a USB floppy drive, dump the chipset drivers on a floppy and install them via pressing F6 during the text mode of the XP installation.
 
GushpinBob said:
I would download nlite and integrate the laptop's chipset drivers into the XP disc. Either that, or find a USB floppy drive, dump the chipset drivers on a floppy and install them via pressing F6 during the text mode of the XP installation.
Click to expand...

This is the solution. You need the SATA drivers on a floppy disk, or nLite them into the install disk. Always been an XP issue.
 
Are the SATA drivers on the Windows 7 installation disc? I have a copy of that I can attempt this with as well
 
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