Trying to install Windows XP on old Toshiba Portege S100. "Setup cannot find hdd"

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mtx

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I have a Toshiba Portege S100 laptop which has a SATA hard disk. I wish to install Windows XP SP3 on it. The XP install disk does not contain SATA drivers. If I attempt setup, I get "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". I know I have to press F6 when asked to, and feed setup a floppy disk which contains the necessary SATA drivers. However it does not work and I still get the "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" error message even after loading the drivers. Any ideas? :(
 
set SATA to IDE mode in the BIOS, you can set it to ACHI after installation IIRC
 
There is a setting in the BIOS someplace that either says:

- SATA to Compatibility mode
- SATA to IDE mode
- SATA to ATA mode
- SATA to (whatever)

but there's a setting in there which controls that aspect. If you can't find it, or for some reason Toshiba left it out (ain't happening), then you'll need to create a custom XP installation disc with the SATA drivers integrated since the chances of you being able to access/use an actual floppy disk with that machine are between oh, null and void.

If you need a guide on making the custom disc, I wrote one a few years ago that's proven helpful to a bunch of folks, you can find it here:

http://members.cox.net/joe.average/How_To_Integrate_SATA_Drivers_into_A_Custom_Windows_CD.zip

Yes it's long, yes it's wordy, but it gets the job done. Personally I'd say go through that BIOS one page of info at a time and find that setting 'cause I'm fairly confident it's in there, someplace.
 
some quick googling reveals no compatibility option in the BIOS, wow, that's ridiculous
 
I slipstreamed the drivers onto a XP SP3 and same "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" error comes up. :(
 
Then you a) didn't slipstream the correct driver (needs to be the real-mode driver, not the Windows-based driver) or b) the driver chosen isn't the correct one in the first place.

Only thing I can suggest is to use a Linux LiveCD and boot that laptop off it, once you're up and running, open a Terminal and do the lspci command to see precisely and exactly what hardware is in the laptop with respect to the hard drive controller.

I say that because (as I mentioned in that guide I linked above, another reason it's so wordy) most people end up choosing the wrong driver (the Windows-based driver instead of the real-mode driver) but they typically choose the wrong SATA controller driver too; as demonstrated in that guide, a typical Intel SATA controller based on a given chipset could have upwards of 7 different variations and if you don't choose the precise one required, it won't work.

The User Manual says that Portege S100 was made way back in 2005-2006 or so, if it's a real Portege S100, and it has an Intel ICH6 chipset (for some reason, that laptop even supported RAID operation, go figure). The drivers are a bit weird - they reference Intel PCI vendor ID codes (8086) and two different device IDs (2653 and 27C5). 2653 shows a simple Intel SATA controller as expected, and 27C5 is listed as an AHCI controller specifically - no mention of SATA there but obviously it's SATA as AHCI is part of the spec.

If you grab the 1.3.8.0 version of the RAID driver from Toshiba's support site (that was the last driver available), and you extract the contents, you'll end up with 2 files and a \drivers folder. Inside that are two folders: KR10I and KR10N. If you have access to an actual floppy drive (you sorta hinted at that in the first post), what you need to do is copy the contents of either of those folders to the floppy - you don't extract the entire archive to the floppy because XP can't search the contents, it's not like Vista and Windows 7.

The only thing that should be in the root directory of that floppy are the 7 files (replace the I with N for those versions):

KR10I
KR10I.CAT
KR10I.INF
KR10I.SYS
KR10I2K.SYS
TXTSETUP.OEM
VIRTUAL.INF

That's it. Try that using the contents of just those folders and just those 7 files in the root directory of the floppy and see what happens.

Not sure what else to suggest at this point, the research I just did would be what I'd do if that were a customer's machine and I was trying to get it operational with a clean install of Windows XP SP3 myself.

Good luck...
 
Yes, I did exactly as you said with those 7 files from the KR10N version which is supposed to be for XP.

I only have those 7 files in the root directory of my external floppy.

Then whe nI install, I choose the XP version.

But still it cannot find a hard drive :(.
 
Make sure that you are integrating the textmode drivers in nlite (it should say textmode explicitly as opposed to PNP).

EDIT: Are you sure there's nothing wrong with the hard drive itself?


86 5.0L said:
some quick googling reveals no compatibility option in the BIOS, wow, that's ridiculous
Click to expand...

Not really when you think about it. Most OEMs would probably expect consumers to either use the recovery partition on the hard drive or purchase a recovery disc from them (which would have the drivers already integrated). From their standpoint, I would rather save a few bucks (heck, probably make a few on the side for the recovery discs) rather than spend it on such a feature in the BIOS that 95% of the customers would probably never use.
 
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Does the drive show up in the bios at all? Do you hear is spinning/clicking at any time during boot? If the drivers aren't working, and the computer is as old as it sounds, I'm guessing it's toast.
 
mtx said:
I have a Toshiba Portege S100 laptop which has a SATA hard disk. I wish to install Windows XP SP3 on it. The XP install disk does not contain SATA drivers. If I attempt setup, I get "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". I know I have to press F6 when asked to, and feed setup a floppy disk which contains the necessary SATA drivers. However it does not work and I still get the "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" error message even after loading the drivers. Any ideas? :(
Click to expand...

You could try the TOSHIBA tech support bulletin at http://209.167.114.38/support/techsupport/tsbs/all/-TSB001272.htm

There are other (much easier) ways that work, but I'm not sure of their legality (although I would argue that if the Toshiba recommendations don't work, do you just throw the laptop in the bin? :D)
 
I have solved the problem (at least for my situation.)

I bought a used Portege S100. It did not have a HD so I popped one in and started the process of trying to install XP (sp2.)

Every thing looked good,I verified the HD was functional on another PC, the toshiba Portege S100 bios could see the HD, but during the install, Windows could not see the HD.

I remembered to hit F6 to load SATA drivers for XP and downloaded the latest from Toshiba. I unzipped the files and after following their directions to no avail decided to try a copy of windows 7.

I figured Win 7 would have the SATA drivers built in. Still nothing. Windows 7 could not see the HD.

Finally after messing with every setting in bios I stumbled on the following:

The bios on page 3/3 has a RAID section.
My PC had the disk listed as a JBOD (I think it defaults to JBOD.YA I have never heard of it either! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-RAID_drive_architectures )

I arrowed to "JBOD" and hit the space bar to change it.

"1RAID-0" was the only other option. So having nothing to lose I hit the space bar which popped up a warning to the effect "Are you sure all data will be lost"

I hit the space bar again and more text popped up "Do you really want to do this?"

I hit the space bar yet again and another warning popped up, "If 'Yes" please type the key string which is written in manual" What manual? I looked at what Toshiba had online and did not find a "string"

Just for th heck of it I typed "1234" and hit "Enter" (I might have hit space?) and as if by magic the disk was now listed as "1RAID-0"

I hit "End" and "Y" and the PC rebooted.

I had the XP drivers on a memory stick still in the USB port and a windows 7 disk in the drive and after the reboot windows 7 started the install process and asked if I wanted to install it on the 40G HD!!!!!!!

I finished the install and after 95 updates it is running like a champ.

I have not reproduced the steps above to see if what I remember is truly how I remember it but I am 90% sure the issue is the JBOD vs RAID setting.

I would bet that XP would install now with the toshiba drivers unzipped and in the root of a thumb drive.

I will be installing XP on this laptop in a week or so and will update then. Good luck!
 
Yeah I just had to reload my brothers desktop over the weekend that had one of the first gen SATA capable motherboards that had same troubles. (his hard drive died and he wanted to switch to his SATA hard drive) It was a Chaintech Zenith board that they no longer support. (XP was as far as they went and don't even have support on their page any more) Vista and 7 both would not detect the necessary hardware and luckily I had the original motherboard disk. However, I found it easier to just recycle an old PATA drive then to hassle with getting the SATA drive to work as the boot drive. And yes, it is because it shows up as a RAID system instead of how most modern boards are set up. This board was purchased in 2004. And there was absolutely no options in the BIOS to switch to AHCI or IDE vs. SATA whatsoever. I was rather annoyed, but it still works and it didn't cost anything to fix but time.
 
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