Windows installation and Serial ATA issues

So, I caught this nasty little worm—total virus nightmare—and now my PC is basically refusing to cooperate at all. I figured, fine, let's just ditch the old drive and swap in a fresh 80GB empty Serial ATA drive. I go into the BIOS, set the boot priority to the CD/DVD drive, and everything seems to be going perfectly fine. I’m right at that stage where you hit Enter to start the Windows installation—you know, when that blue screen pops up with the three options—but as soon as I hit Enter, it just screams at me that it can't find any HDD! How does that even make sense?! When I restart and jump straight into the BIOS, the drive shows up perfectly fine, but then suddenly, when I actually try to do something, it’s gone? What am I supposed to do here? I've been banging my head against this wall for two hours already! 😢 😠

Just head over to the motherboard manufacturer's website—you probably have the driver right there on the motherboard Windows XP CD anyway—and grab the SATA boot driver. Once you've got it, load it onto a floppy disk and feed it to the installer. Hit F6 the second the setup starts, and eventually, it’ll prompt you to insert the floppy.

Just head into the BIOS and disable the RAID setting

I am in agreement with Benjamin King2. This second point is something I haven't encountered before.

Benjamin King2 said:Go straight to the motherboard manufacturer's website—and honestly, you probably have it right there on the motherboard CD too—and grab the SATA boot driver. Then, just load that onto a floppy disk so the Windows installer can see it. Once you start the setup, hit F6 immediately, and it'll prompt you to insert that floppy.

Can someone please explain this a bit better? Seriously. Thanks. I don't have the driver on a CD and I'm totally lost trying to find it online—I'm making a complete mess of this. Any help would be huge!

First off, tell me which motherboard you're running and what kind of drive we're talking about—PATA or SATA? Also, is the drive plugged directly into the motherboard controller or some separate PCI controller?

SATA disk on an asus P4S800D-x motherboard

Well, look, since this board is a bit older, there's a chance it won't recognize you have a SATA drive once you start the Windows installation. Just do what Benjamin King2 suggested: grab those SATA controller drivers, put them on a floppy disk, and then boot. Once the Windows setup kicks off, it should prompt you right away to hit F6 to load the SCSI drivers. Hit F6 and wait for it to ask for the files. Pop the floppy in, and you're good to go. And yeah, it actually has to be a floppy.

You can find the driver here: drajver

@mellowsailor11/">@@mellowsailor11

I honestly don't see the issue here. I gave you a direct link to the drivers for your specific motherboard. If you can't manage to download them, then we've got bigger problems.

Switch over to RAID, since that’s likely what you need. Grab the driver file for your OS (Windows XP), unzip it, and load it onto a floppy. From there, just follow the steps everyone else already laid out. Boot from the Windows XP CD, and once the installer kicks in, hit F6 when it asks for the driver.

You don't even need to bother with all that
Just format the floppy, pop it in, toss in your Windows XP CD, and boot from it
The rest of it just handles itself automatically

urbanotter4 said:@mellowsailor11/">@@mellowsailor11

I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. I literally handed you the direct link to the drivers for your specific motherboard model. I mean, if you aren't even capable of downloading a file, then we've got a real problem on our hands.

Set your BIOS to RAID—that’s probably where the hiccup is—then just grab the driver file for whatever OS you're running (Windows XP), unzip it, and shove it onto a floppy disk. After that, just follow the steps everyone else already laid out for you. Boot from your Windows XP CD, and once the installer kicks in, hit F6 and wait for it to ask you for the driver.

I downloaded it, but now I have no clue which part actually goes on the floppy. Look, I'll admit it—I'm not exactly a computer whiz, which is why I'm over here asking for help.

Yeah, once you unpack it, you’re probably going to see a bunch of extra files you don't actually need. Just look for these two: Disk1 (don't freak out if there's no extension) and TXTSETUP.OEM That *.OEM file might have a slightly different name depending on things, but that's the gist. Save those two onto a floppy, and it should work perfectly.

Then just boot from your Windows XP CD, hit F6, and when the installer starts asking for drivers, pop that floppy in.

I tried doing the whole thing, but since I couldn't find Disk 1 anywhere—total nightmare, right?—I just used the make disk option and tossed in that txtsetup file. So, I slide the floppy in, hit F6, then tap 's', shove the disk in... and absolutely nothing happens! It just sits there staring at me before spitting out "put floppy in a"

Nice job on the setup, I just don't get why it's failing to see the drivers on the floppy now. 🤔 Is your floppy drive even working at all?

http://www.crosatelite.com/forum/index.php

You can find everything you need right here...

urbanotter4 said:You did everything right, I just don't get why it isn't seeing the drivers on the floppy now. 🤔 Is your floppy drive even working at all?

When I jump into the BIOS, the floppy shows up fine—so I have no clue what the deal is. I'm gonna try a few more things and then I'll check back in.

Does anyone have a diagram or something showing how the floppy should be hooked up?

The floppy drive should be visible in two separate locations within the BIOS. You'll see it immediately upon entering the BIOS interface, and again under the Boot settings. Within the Boot menu, you need to set the priority so that it boots from the CD first, then the floppy, and finally the HDD-a.

Daniel Cruz28 said:The floppy drive should show up in two different spots in your BIOS settings. You'll see it right when you first enter the BIOS, and then again under the Boot menu. In the Boot section, make sure you set the priority to hit the CD first, then the floppy, and finally the HDD.

I did exactly what he said—set everything up just like that—and still nothing! It's just not working. There’s gotta be something wrong with the floppy itself, right? Does anyone have any clue what else could be going on here?

When you access my computer, besides the local drives or a DVD-RW drive, do you find a floppy disk drive available?

I can't find my hard drive whenever I try to install Vista on a blank disk—and don't even get me started, because I definitely have the floppy drive enabled in the BIOS!