Inspiron 6400 new hard disk unable to install XP home BSOD

There is no SATA driver for the Inspiron 6400 laptop.  The chipset uses a SATA to PATA bridge which allows the use of the older IDE/PATA drivers that are native to Windows XP.  If you are encountering a stop error, you either have a bad hard drive, or you installed the drive upside down.  Older computers sometimes used an interposer connector, an adapter that plugged onto the pins of the hard drive in order to connect to the computer properly.  Most computers with SATA hardware do not use these connectors, however.

Well, as far as I can see from the bios the hard disk is detected as  Primary Hard Drive - 250GB HDD (as is the correct capacity) under device info section, fields which are unchageable, not too many options or settings which can be made... The XP I was trying 2 HOME versions, one with sp2 integrated and another one with sp3 integrated.. same error reported.. I'm thinking that it is a clear software issue since the Live CD linux was working and capable to find all the installed devices.. any other idea? thank you!

Jack, for sure is not upside down installed, I double check it, also in such case the screws will not match. The hard disk is totally brand new hard to believe that is damaged or something...

.. more over, I just checked, the hard drive works just fine in a desktop, just made 2 partitions, formated and checked.. everything is working just fine.

The first thing you should do when installing a new hard drive is start the computer and use F2 to reach system setup.  Check to see if the BIOS is properly reporting the presence of the hard drive.  If the computer doesn't see it, Windows can't.

Second, what service pack is included on the Windows installation disk you are using?  The video bus in the Inspiron 6400 is PCI-e, and to install Windows XP you must be using a disk that includes Service Pack 2.  Earlier versions of the Windows XP installation disk do not have the PCI-e drivers needed for that bus.

Try going back to System Setup (F2) and checking the boot order.  Does your computer require that a checkmark be placed next to bootable devices by using the spacebar?

Also, at what point do you reach the blue screen?  Can you boot the Windows XP installation CD to the point that you can choose to custom install and have the options of deleting partitions on the hard drive?  If you can, look to see that there are no existing partitions, and if there are, deleting them.  Recreate a partition to see if you can install.  You might also try booting the linux live CD to zero out the MBR as sometimes problems with that will foul up the Windows XP setup program.

EDIT:  By the way; what type and how large is your new disk drive?

sorry, didn't have much time to check. Anyway, the boot order is not connected here, moreover before booting I'm selecting from which media I want to boot by pressing F12. The BSOD occurs immediately after the windows is loading all the files needed for install, so I'm not able to see even the disclaimer! 

Once again I believe that the issue appears because the XP needs SATA drivers, and I'm saying that because I just made a test with Windows 7 and there are no issues regarding HDD detection, partitions or anything else connected with HDD.. worked smooth! However this doesn't help me to much since I need XP Home edition.. 

forgot to add, the hard disk is a Seagate sata/300 Momentum 250 Gb

The Inspiron 6400 was one of the first Dell laptops to be designed for SATA hard drives.  As I described earlier, the laptop uses a PATA to SATA bridge; since it presents an IDE/ATA interface to the operating system, you would not be able to load a SATA driver even if one were available and you should want to do so.

While I realize it doesn't seem logical, you should try changing the boot order in System Setup.  Sometimes changing things will result in producing at least a new symptom to give a hint as to what is wrong.  If your hard drive is not already first in the order, put it there, and if it is first, try changing things so that the DVD/CD ROM drive is first and the hard drive second.

EDIT:  One other thing; DVD/CD drives sometimes have difficulty switching from one type of disk to another, something to keep in mind as the Windows XP installation disk is a CD.  Try blowing the dust out of your DVD/CD drive, or try using a USB DVD/CD drive.

I will give a try with changing the boot order even if sounds strange. The last idea with trying on another optical unit, sorry but it is a nonsense since all other operating systems(windows 7, Fedora Linux and Debian ) are loaded with the same optical unit which XP doesn't want to start, moreover the files are loaded from the dvdrom to laptop memory since the error occurs after all the files needed for setup are loaded in to the notebook (can be seen on the bottom of the screen the file copy  status) I will let you know about the boot order.. thanks again!

Yes, checking the disk out with another drive may seem like nonsense, but you haven't seen the crazy things I've seen.  The drive uses another laser assembly to read CDs as opposed to DVDs, and I've had drives that would read one and not the other, and also drives that would partially read a disk; in that case the basic problem was likely with the disk, but the disk could be read by other drives.

One thing you could check, however; put the disk in an external drive case and delete all existing partitions.  When done, reinstall the drive on the Inspiron 6400 and see if Windows setup now sees the drive.  That may also sound weird, but I had another member solve the problem in exactly that way just today.  When the disk is examined by Windows setup, it looks for familiar data in the sectors that normally hold the Master Boot Record.  If something unexpected is found, it assumes that the disk has data on it from another type of OS and will sometimes refuse to use the disk.