Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
1 Rookie
•
13 Posts
0
3312
April 12th, 2009 16:00
XP Pro crashes on setup - doesn't recognize hard drive
DELL XPS 730X arrived with Vista64 installed (no other purchase choice for this model). I had already bought a retail copy of XP SP2. After fooling around a bit with Vista64, I popped in the XP DVD and tried to install. (I have a bunch of necessary legacy apps that won't run under Vista).
It gets to the hard drive part, shows four "options" with "no drive found" then blue screens. (oX00...8e, 0xC00...5, 0X8081A799, 0XF6FE2778, 0X...)
The computer has a 300GB WD drive with 3 partitions. A small FAT16 partition "Dell Utility", a small NTFS "Recovery" partition, then C: with an extended logical partiton and 3 logical drives. So, in short. 2 small non-OS partitions followed by C: (about 170GB) and the 3 logical drives. The partitions are all identified as "primary" in the Vista64 disk management section.
I don't know if the partitioning is the problem or if XP2 simply doesn't recognize the hard drive - which would be a major disaster for me and pretty much make this brand new very expensive computer useless.
Any ideas?
Davet50
6 Operator
•
14.4K Posts
0
April 12th, 2009 16:00
the problem is agelees you need to load the SATA drivers either via a floppy or slipstreamed. Also unless you are running a RAID setup you need to go into the bios and set your SATA mode/option to ATA.
There is tons of info on this on the web so it is not unique to any particular system. XP never had SATA support in in it like vista does. Rather than wipe out your vista install you might have been better off setting up a dual boot with both OS's on seperate drives.
billboz
2 Posts
0
April 12th, 2009 20:00
Or you can try the fix explained here http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=E81426A4BCE5D9DFE030030ABD623905&doclang=en&cs=
Davet50
6 Operator
•
14.4K Posts
0
April 13th, 2009 06:00
Perhaps if you read my post it says the same thing
dsqrd
1 Rookie
•
13 Posts
0
April 13th, 2009 12:00
Thanks - but...
1. no floppy drive - and I don't see how that would help since XP boots from the CD/DVD and there's no stopping point after it does a bunch of loads before it gets to the hard drive options and crashes.
2. slipstreaming? - please explain
3. XPS BIOS identifies the single hard drive as SATA 1. At another point in the BIOS, there is an ICH SATA CONFIG with the option to configure SATA 1-6 as either AHCI or RAID. It's set up as AHCI because I don't have a RAID. I couldn't find any other hard drive options.
dsqrd
1 Rookie
•
13 Posts
0
April 13th, 2009 12:00
re the dual boot: I do plan on doing that, but with XP and Vista 32. Vista 64 simply isn't compatible with too many apps and takes up way, way, way too much disk space. (close to 100GB)
There is no SATA option/mode for ATA in the XPS BIOS setup.
dsqrd
1 Rookie
•
13 Posts
0
April 13th, 2009 13:00
oopa. re #1. forgot about that setup prompt for raid drivers. Life would have been easier if I'd gone for a SCSI drive - but Dell didn't offer the option which I thought was really weird.
I found some information using Google (somehow missed it before I made the original post -- wrong search terms I guess.) Saw recommendation to use nlite to create an ISO image from the install CD w/ the correct drivers - but others who have tried say that it fails on the EULA. So, I've ordered a floppy drive - and have to wait 10 days for it to arrive.
Thank you.