No HD detected (XP install)

Hello

I can't get Xp to install on the computer. I think it might have something to do with it being IDE and not SATA...In BIOS I don't see IDE anywhere. there is a BIOS update but I don't know how to make a bootable cd with it. In windows setup it says the HD isnt compatible.

The computer is an AcerPower FV....its a new HD so there isnt any acer recovery, and it was given to me so there arent any discs with it...

thanks

 

Hi,

At what step in setup do you see the Windows compatibility error message?

What size is the HD? Is it the only HD in the machine? Is it on its own cable? Is the CDROM on its own cable?

 

yes its the only HD in there...80GB on the same cable as cdrom, ones on master and on is on slave

 

If you have two cables it would be best to put each the HD and CDROM on their own cable as Master. One connection at the motherboard will say Primary IDE HardDrive 0 and one will say CDROM IDE 1 (or some combination of those words) you want the HD connected to the cable with the 0 connection and the CDROM to the cable with the 1 connection.

If you only have one cable then make sure the HD is set to Master at the end of the cable and the CDROM is set to secondary/slave in the middle of the cable.

At one step is the compatibility warning--what does the rest of the screen look like--partitioning or what?

 

I have 2 cables but won't do me any good as there is only 1 IDE slot for the HD/Cd-rom and one for the A: drive

I took a pic of the screen.....

 

Hmmm, It is not reading that HD correctly. It says it is 2TB in size.

Do you get options at the partition screen? How much unallocated space does it see on the partition screen?

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In BIOS do you see the HD under Storage or Disks--what size does it list? It looks like it is connected correctly as Primary Disk 0.

 

I don't see it in BIOS anywhere...i see the cd rom tho...tried a different drive and its the same...no HD but CD-rom

 

I see the computer originally came with a SATA HD and you are replacing with an IDE HD.

What brand HD do you have let's make sure the jumpers are set correctly.

 

Format the HDD

 

its a seagate...shows the jumper settings right on the HD....I even went online to make sure they were right.....


it wont let me format it...when i click D in the setup it doesnt do anything....I put it in a HD enclosure and hooked it up to this computer and formatted that way tho

 

not 100% sure but the BIOS might have something to do wit it as it has a 2002 BIOS on it now and there is a newer on from 2008...so if i could make a bootable BIOS cd and update it, maybe that would work?

 

by the way...tried another drive and it does the same thing

 

Go down to step 4 in this guide what do you see in the box? The top line is the size of the drive and the second line is existing partitions. If you don't have an existing partition it should say unallocated space.

 

got it working.......faulty IDE cable (i think) put a WD HD in with a new IDE cable and it picked it up.....then i switcher it back to the seagate and windows is installing

 

Good work!

I always forget that a cable can go bad. I actually had one go bad on me about 3 weeks ago. It took me a while to figure out what was going on--I kept focusing on the HD rather than the cable. Hmm, just like now.

 

3 weeks ago? and you forgot? how dare you could have saved me hours and hours of banging my head off the desk. haha


thanks for the help...greatly appreciated