Common Troubleshooting Methods When OS Install Unable to Detect SATA Harddisk Drive
You decided that it’s time to reformat and reinstall your computer’s operating system so that it will start fresh and fast. However, when attempting to boot from Windows XP or Vista or Linux flavor (RedHat, Ubuntu and etc) installation setup CD/DVD, the install may stop and halt with an error message saying that setup does not detect hard disk drives installed on the computer. Without any hard disk, the installation of OS cannot continue.
If you facing the S-ATA (Serial ATA) hard disk not found and not detected problem, here’s a few steps and suggestions that you may take to identify what exactly is the cause of the problem, and its possible solutions or workarounds. The checklist can also applied when you install a new SATA hard disk drive, but it isn’t detected by operating system and doesn’t appear inside your Windows or Linux system.
- Ensure that the SATA HDD (hard disk drive) is installed, detected, and listed in the BIOS SATA hard disk list. When a SATA hard disk is connected to SATA connector, it should be detected at least at hardware BIOS level. If any connected SATA HDD is not listed in the S-ATA drive list, check the SATA cables are properly connected to the connectors/ports, and that the SATA cable is in the master slot on the motherboard.
- Some SATA chipset especially older version such as those from Silicon Image 3112/3132 and etc. requires driver for the OS setup to recognize the SATA drive. Make sure you have a copy of driver from the manufacturer ready. To install Windows XP, the driver must be in floppy disk. Press F6 to load this third party driver when prompted in Windows XP/Vista.
- SATA-RAID feature will most likely require additional driver for OS to recognize the hard disk in RAID array, as OS especially Windows does not have a native SATA RAID driver. Again, for XP, the driver must be resided on a floppy disk, and press F6 to load/addl additional driver for SATA-RAID drive during Windows setup.
- For those without SATA/RAID driver, it’s also possible to disable SATA RAID option in the BIOS. OS normally has native SATA driver (except old on as specified above), and thus able to detect the SATA disks.
- AHCI mode on SATA hard drive also requires appropriate drivers in Windows XP/Vista. Disable AHCI or change SATA mode to IDE emulation mode in BIOS so that SATA hard drive will work as just a normal hard drive utilizing native SATA driver in Windows or other OS.
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December 13th, 2008 22:29
nice to read that you can fix this blunder from microsoft. One little note….you need to have the driver on a floppy….humz…most new computers who use a sata controller don’t have floppydrives….
December 13th, 2007 23:42
[...] Users can install Windows XP or Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) on an AHCI enabled system by changing BIOS setting to disable AHCI (or RAID which includes AHCI in its functions) and use native SATA IDE emulation mode (SATA/PATA). In SATA IDE Emulation mode, XP setup could find theSATA drives and proceed to continue to install XP properly. How to change the BIOS settings on SATA mode is depending on which brand or model or even motherboard of your computer system. Check your system manual for more information. For example, in Dell Precision workstation, press F2 to go into BIOS, and then go to “SATA Management” to select AHCI or SATA mode. If you don’t find any option in BIOS to change AHCI support for SATA ports, most probably the drives already runs in IDE (ATA) emulation mode and therefore doesn’t require the AHCI driver. It’s because AHCI support is depending on the chipset (commonly by Intel) and the HDD. In this case, you have to figure out what’s other causes that may stop your SATA disks from functioning. [...]
October 23rd, 2007 12:54
[...] Users can install Windows XP or Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) on an AHCI enabled system by changing BIOS setting to disable AHCI (or RAID which includes AHCI in its functions) and use native SATA IDE emulation mode (SATA/PATA). In SATA IDE Emulation mode, XP setup could find the SATA drives and proceed to continue to install XP properly. How to change the BIOS settings on SATA mode is depending on which brand or model or even motherboard of your computer system. Check your system manual for more information. For example, in Dell Precision workstation, press F2 to go into BIOS, and then go to “SATA Management” to select AHCI or SATA mode. If you don’t find any option in BIOS to change AHCI support for SATA ports, most probably the drives already runs in IDE (ATA) emulation mode and therefore doesn’t require the AHCI driver. It’s because AHCI support is depending on the chipset (commonly by Intel) and the HDD. In this case, you have to figure out what’s other causes that may stop your SATA disks from functioning. [...]