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john510

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john510

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January 28th, 2005 23:00

Formatting New SATA Drive

I just received my New Dell 8400 With Win XP Home on it, the hard drive is a 160 gig sata and eveything seems to work very well,
 
BUT, I want to reformat it and remove some of the stuff like aol and so on and also put a copy od Windows XP proffesional on it, now Ive done  this maybe at least 60 times in the past with all types of computers but never until today ran into a problem after putting in the windows xp Pro cd , it will begin to run perform the begiining setup but then say it can not locate a hard drive on my system, what do I need to do to bypass this, is there a raid driver that I never got with the system? please describe so I dont have to call.
 
Sugestions on this,
 
Thanks
  • J

    john510

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    Posted January 28th, 2005 23:00

    How do you sujest removing the partiton, with partition magic or is there something that will show on the windows cd or is it hidden?
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    john510

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    Posted January 28th, 2005 23:00

    Ok Well I have a problem with that, One I have No floppy, cd drive and dvd can I put them on usb stick? and where do i get the correct drivers , they were not sent with it?
     
     
  • E

    ejn63

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    Posted January 28th, 2005 23:00

    You can download the RAID drivers from support.dell.com.

    Here's one way to do the installation without a floppy:

    http://greenmachine.msfnhosting.com/READING/addraid.htm

    All in all, you'd be better off leaving things as they are, and simply removing the programs, such as AOL, that you do not want.

    If you install Windows anew, you may as well blow away the Dell restore partition, as it will no longer function afterward.
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    ejn63

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    Posted January 28th, 2005 23:00

    You need to press F6 where indicated, and insert a floppy with the SATA RAID drivers on it.
  • SS

    Shawn.S

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    Posted January 29th, 2005 00:00

    Try this first. Boot into the bios setup by pressing F2 at the dell logo. Go to drives go to sata operations and change the setting to Raid Auto/ATA. This may work with no driver needed.
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    john510

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    Posted January 29th, 2005 01:00

    Well actually the  Raid Auto/ATA idea shaun had does work, it allows me to get into the cd rom of win xp pro, but I stopped at the partion area to get ready to do this in the morning and noticed when I rebooted I got that blue screen of death with a massive error.

    This was solved by going back into the bios and changing it back but Im a little worried after I start the reformat, it may not se it again for I will have to change it back during a boot in the middle?

     

    Any other ideas, the slipsteaming idea would work except that my files are not the same as they describe, at least not the drivers section it talks about..

  • SS

    Shawn.S

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    Posted January 29th, 2005 02:00

    Did you use the F6 key to install the sata drivers? When you change the bios to this mode it should not need any drivers.

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    shesagordie

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    Posted January 29th, 2005 03:00

    john510.  
     
    Before you reinstall XP, check the CDs that are send with your computer and if your system is like my D8400 you will find that there are no "Utilities and Drivers" and "Applications" CDs included, for these you will need to download them from Dell's site and burn then to a CD. Also the D8400 manual is an icon on the desktop. 
     
    Bev.
  • J

    john510

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    Posted January 29th, 2005 11:00

    Shaun your right it does not need any driver but what about during the setup when the computer goes to reboot? wont it get that terrible death of bluse screen saying a massive error ?
     
    I got this and had to switch the bios back?
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    john510

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    Posted January 29th, 2005 13:00

    Also which is the correct driver for my system for the AHCI for this dell 8400  3.2 with 160 gig ? This way I can download the right one before hooking up a temp floppy?

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