Topic: question regarding xp and sata hdds

[Mackie]

Each time I try to install xp, the damn setup says 'partition not correct' or whatnot. tried deleting the partition and creating it again but no help.
any ideas?

[Tus-XC]

how man hds do ya have?

[Javora]

Lets start from the beginning.

1.  Did you zero out the drive (low level format) or do a quick format?  If you only did a quick format then I would suggest that you try a low level format.  WinXP maybe reading the data that is already on the drive causing an error.

2.  Did you install the SATA drivers (if needed) by pressing F6 when WinXP prompts and install them from a floppy?  A lot of motherboards require that SATA drivers be loaded at the beginning of the WinXP install.  WinXP will ask something like "Press F6 to install third party drivers".  I don't know what motherboard you have so you may want to check the manual and see what is required.

3.  As mentioned above how many hard drives do you have connected at the time that you attempted to install WinXP?  I've found that WinXP can become confused when assigning drive letters during the install process.  Not exactly sure why (not that I really looked for an answer to this) but if you have more then one hard drive I would suggest that you disconnect every other hard drive except the hard drive that you plan on installing WinXP on.

4.  How large is the partition that you are trying to install WinXP on?  I ask because I've seen some people in a attempt to squeeze every MB out of their hard drive for data will short change the amount of space needed to install WinXP.  WinXP may recognize this and kicking out the error.  I usually allow at least 20GB for WinXP in case I want to install something else there.  As I get older I'm not as worried about making sure every single program is installed on a program drive.

5.  Check the data and power cables.  Make sure the SATA data connector on the hard drive and/or the motherboard is not broken.  Also check the SATA power cable connected to the hard drive.

This should give you some ideas to work on.  Hope this helps, if not give us a yell I'm sure one of us will figure it out.

[Centurus]

When I was setting up my very first and only SATA hard drive, I had a problem that prevented me from getting the damned thing to work.  No matter what I tried, no matter which copy of XP I used, no matter how many times I installed the drivers that came with the board, or the updated drivers, it just wouldn't work.

I did the one thing that probably no one would have thought of.

Normally I use IDE hard drives.  This mobo has 2 IDE channels, so I can still use my standard IDE drives.  Also, SATA drives are plug and play, so you don't need to have the system shut down and plug the drive in for the drive to boot properly.

So, when I had one of my IDE drives loaded and running and I was in Windows, I just plugged the SATA drive up, let Windows recognize it, and then reformatted the sucker a couple times, just to make sure. 

Once that was done, I turned off the computer, pulled out the IDE, booted up with the SATA plugged in only, installed Windows and didn't bother with trying to install the SATA drivers, and XP installed without a problem.  Haven't had any problems since, except for a couple viruses since I never loaded a firewall onto it and rarely use it.

Maybe trying to set up your SATA drive the way I did might work for you. 

[Mackie]

Lets start from the beginning.

1.  Did you zero out the drive (low level format) or do a quick format?  If you only did a quick format then I would suggest that you try a low level format.  WinXP maybe reading the data that is already on the drive causing an error.

2.  Did you install the SATA drivers (if needed) by pressing F6 when WinXP prompts and install them from a floppy?  A lot of motherboards require that SATA drivers be loaded at the beginning of the WinXP install.  WinXP will ask something like "Press F6 to install third party drivers".  I don't know what motherboard you have so you may want to check the manual and see what is required.

3.  As mentioned above how many hard drives do you have connected at the time that you attempted to install WinXP?  I've found that WinXP can become confused when assigning drive letters during the install process.  Not exactly sure why (not that I really looked for an answer to this) but if you have more then one hard drive I would suggest that you disconnect every other hard drive except the hard drive that you plan on installing WinXP on.

4.  How large is the partition that you are trying to install WinXP on?  I ask because I've seen some people in a attempt to squeeze every MB out of their hard drive for data will short change the amount of space needed to install WinXP.  WinXP may recognize this and kicking out the error.  I usually allow at least 20GB for WinXP in case I want to install something else there.  As I get older I'm not as worried about making sure every single program is installed on a program drive.

5.  Check the data and power cables.  Make sure the SATA data connector on the hard drive and/or the motherboard is not broken.  Also check the SATA power cable connected to the hard drive.

This should give you some ideas to work on.  Hope this helps, if not give us a yell I'm sure one of us will figure it out.

1. Proper NTFS, not "quick"
2. didnt come with any and dont know if i need to, the hd works well when _in_ windows (booting from older crappier hd if curious)
3. two drives, one ide one sata. the setup lists both correctly (but refuses to install anything on the sata one) and removing the other hd would kind of defeat the purpose as thats where the windows installation files are
4. 160 gigs
5. well, yes, have. a little obvious but thank you for the tip regardless

I suppose i'll try playing around with the formats a little more :>

[Javora]

1. Proper NTFS, not "quick"
2. didnt come with any and dont know if i need to, the hd works well when _in_ windows (booting from older crappier hd if curious)
3. two drives, one ide one sata. the setup lists both correctly (but refuses to install anything on the sata one) and removing the other hd would kind of defeat the purpose as thats where the windows installation files are
4. 160 gigs
5. well, yes, have. a little obvious but thank you for the tip regardless

I suppose i'll try playing around with the formats a little more :>

In question 1. I was asking if you had done a complete low level format, meaning that zeros were written to the entire hard drive.  Or if you had done what is called a "quick format", which only writes zeros to the first and last couple hundred Megabytes of the hard drive.  This low level format doesn't actually format the drive, I usually let WinXP format the drive during the install.  This has nothing to do with if you had formated the drive using the NT file system.  If you had done a "quick" low level format WinXP may have gotten confused by the data that was left on the drive.  Sorry I should have explained that a little better.

2.  Check the motherboard manual or on the website as your motherboard may need 3rd party drivers to properly run WinXP on the SATA hard drive.  If you do need those drivers then also take a look at the install process because it can be a little tricky the first couple of times.

3.  Ok, so you are not using a WinXP disk.  Sounds like you got a restore data on a hard drive because some companies are to cheap to give people an actual disk.  I really hate it when companies screw people over like they did in your case, because if the hard drive ever becomes corrupted then you are out of luck.

 

Ok in this case this is what I suggest.  Find out who made your SATA hard drive.  Then go to the web site of the hard drive maker and download the hard drive utility.  This utility usually has a function that will copy the contents of a source drive on to the SATA drive that you bought.  Then you can un-connect the old hard drive and should be able to install WinXP on the SATA drive.  If by chance the SATA hard drive maker doesn't offer that function in the utility then you will need to look for a third party program that will do that.

4.  Ok good, no worries there.

5.  Yes it is a little obvious but I've seen things like this overlooked before.  And since I'm not setting at your desk I try to list everything I can in case something was overlooked.

[Mackie]

after switching aroudn few hds, windows disks, playing around with floppy disks... generally spare parts from a friend of mine, I did manage to get windows installed WHERE i wanted it and HOW i wanted it

thanks though