Windows XP Setup Could Not Detect and Find Any SATA Hard Disk Drive on AHCI Mode
When installing Windows XP on SATA hard disk drive, you may encounter problem where you unable to install Windows XP on the SATA drive as the Windows XP setup installation interface does not detect and recognize any of the hard disks mounted on S-ATA (Serial ATA) ports, and thus XP installer cannot find usable physical disks on the computer system and unable to continue to install XP, forcing you to quit by pressing F3.
On newer computer and workstation system, such as Dell Precision model, if the SATA HDD is not running on RAID, there is no additional driver needed even for older operating system such as XP to recognize the drive. On SATA based disk that requires a driver, normally the system OEMs or motherboard manufacturers will provide a floppy disk with needed SATA driver, which you can then use F6 button during initial setup stage to add in third-party RAID or SCSI drivers. On newer computer such as those from Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and etc, you probably find that only diagnostics or drivers CD is provided. The worse problem is that you simply cannot extract the SATA drivers from the CD as the driver that wanted to be installed during XP setup must be accompanied by a file named oemsetup.txt, beside the usual driver files and .INF file, else the SATA driver cannot be installed by XP setup to detect HDD.
Here’s a possible solution if you’re in this kind of SATA hard drives not found situation. The trick is related to ACHI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) hardware mechanism which are designed to allow software to communicate with Serial ATA (SATA) devices such as host bus adapters with features not offered by Parallel ATA (PATA) controllers such as higher speeds, hot-plugging and native command queuing (NCQ). Windows XP (and any OS older than Vista or linux kernel 2.6.19) does not have came pre-packaged with driver to support AHCI/SATA mode, thus creating a very common error that Wikipedia also described as “when attempting to install Microsoft Windows XP or a previous version on an AHCI-enabled system will cause the setup to fail with the error message ’set up could not detect hard disk drive…’”.
The ultimate solution is by using OEM Windows XP CD which comes with your system, which usually has built-in appropriate driver for S-ATA harddisks running in AHCI mode. However, if you lose or do not have the OEM XP CD, or is given Vista DVD but decide to downgrade to XP, there are 2 options to install XP from scratch.
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.
A slightly more difficult but recommended method is to create a slipstreamed XP install disc with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager which is also the AHCI SATA Controller driver included. A slipstreamed XP setup CD with AHCI SATA controller driver allows the XP OS to support hard disk on AHCI and use its advanced features such as NCQ for faster access, read and write speed. While slipstreaming, users can also have the advantage to include all updates for Windows XP for up-to-date patched OS, without the need to download and install hotfixes later.
Related Articles
- Stop 0×0000007B Inaccessable_Boot_Device Error After Enable AHCI Mode on SATA Drive in Vista
- SATA CD/DVD-ROM Optical Drive Disappears After Enabling AHCI Mode in Vista
- Common Troubleshooting Methods When OS Install Unable to Detect SATA Harddisk Drive
- NewerTech Universal Drive Adapter for External PATA and SATA Hard Disk Drive
- Improve SATA (Serial-ATA) Hard Disk Drive Speed Performance in Vista
- SATA Hard Disk Drive Docking Station for Easy Plug and Play with USB 2.0 Interface
- Transcend Offers New 2.5-inch SATA Hard Disk with One Touch Backup Capability
- New WGA Update to Detect and Nuke Windows Vista SoftMod Activation Crack
- Optimize and Speed Up Windows Disk Defragmentation with Disk Defrag
- FlashMate Enables Hard Disk Contents Access Even When PC in Off Mode
Entries (RSS)
November 27th, 2009 19:19
Thanks for the info…
try to instal XP SP2 with difference CD facing the same result…
by changing the SATA option to IDE, it is go smooth now…
Thanks,
Indra.Uno2doors
November 6th, 2009 19:31
thank for you information, if try all day to find the problem and now i can install back my window xp…
thank a lot man and God bless you…
November 6th, 2009 03:13
This article is a life saver…. Being trying for days to do this install on a SATA drive just could not figure out what was the problem. did play around with the bios but never thought of seting it to IDE inorder to be able to do the install.
Thanks for the article
October 27th, 2009 07:19
thanx for the article….very useful, my friend’s notebook now can be installed windows xp
October 27th, 2009 05:49
Great job dear i was worried about my acer veriton m661. i was in the same problem but finding this usefull post hope i solved my problem going to try tomorrow.
mcitdyn@hotmail.com
Aqeel Bukhari
October 23rd, 2009 09:40
Thanks for the GOOD info, was a time-saver!
October 15th, 2009 17:06
i’ll try it out today and leave ma comment on it tomo.. hope it’ll reach me to windows xp
August 27th, 2009 00:17
Thnx man,
i was going crazy and u saved me.
thanx again.
August 17th, 2009 09:18
Thank you for sharing! this is very helpful page. thanks a lot!
August 17th, 2009 09:15
多謝分享!的確很有幫助!! 謝謝!
July 19th, 2009 21:31
[...] and specially the fact that my SATA hard drive was set to use the AHCI mode As described in this blog post on the topic, older versions of Windows don’t have drivers that support [...]
July 6th, 2009 19:58
dear sir
i have toshiba satellite l40 note book and i cant installd windows xp
please sent the link of sata driver for toshiba satalite L40
thanks
ikram ali
09259445413
June 29th, 2009 13:42
I have HP dv2750ee model and it comes with vista home preinstalled, i tried to downgrade it to xp with this procedure but i could not.
There is no option in the bios to disable the ACHI sata, so i got the sata drivers for INTEL 82801HEM/MBM and but in a flobby disk and start the xp installation but every time giving me the blue screan. I also removed the HD and install it in another machine and XP installation went smooth but when i but back the HD in the original machine the same error come again…I need your help please..what can i do to solve this problem????
May 11th, 2009 01:26
I have a problem with HP CQ40.
please help me.
May 7th, 2009 17:54
thanx trying
March 31st, 2009 12:50
I have a problem with Acer 7520g (AMD processor, 2x Hitachi disk). Which AHCI driver should I use?
March 29th, 2009 04:29
That worked like a charm. Thank you so much
March 27th, 2009 01:11
Thank you so much for your help!
You guys are awesome!
March 22nd, 2009 03:37
Thank you so much!!!! No oher website mentioned that the ide setting is also called the (SATA/PATA). This worked for me and I was able to install windows.
February 25th, 2009 18:22
go to another site with another fixup suggestion, because you will want to use full SATA abilities…and, with this proposed reparation, you are compketely circumventing full usability.
February 16th, 2009 02:51
Great advise man!
This new LG RD410 was doing my head in.
I wanna have your babies!!!!
February 9th, 2009 13:37
Daghang salamat bai!
December 28th, 2008 21:10
at first when my sata hard was new I can instal xp on my hard but when for a plroblem i want reinstal a new xp on it I couldnt after
restart my computer a black screen freeze the computer. what do I to reinstal a new windows xp?
thanks
December 28th, 2008 00:01
I’ll Try this…
December 12th, 2008 11:53
I have an ASRock p4vt8+ prescott 800 motherboard and seagate SATA HDD…..
But when I tying to install windows xp,it won’t recognize any HDD…
I try to install RAID driver to detect my HDD,but it can’t too….
may someone send me any SATA driver but not from ASRock site….
because i have try to using it,and it cannot install the driver….
best regard….
GBU…
lyonhart_9@yahoo.com