i am running windows xp sp2 on my hp compaq laptop.it was attacked by a virus a few weeks ago which made it imposible for me to open my drive c or d.after i cleaned the laptop with avg antivirus i realised the virus had made folder options,run,search and other facilities inaccesible.i decided to format the pc but when i start installing it gives me an error saying drive not found,even if i try to repair the OS it still gives the same error.the pc is able to boot though and most programs are running okey. i really want to format the pc,how can i go about it?

you need the SATA drivers and a floppy disk + floppy disk drive

XP does not come with built-in support for installing onto SATA hard disks

i will give the solution a shot.will installing vista help since it may have SATA drivers?u know what i formated the laptop before using the same xp cd.everthing installed okey except for a few drivers which i managed to find.so why is it failing this time around?saying drive c not found when i didnt have that problem the first time.

vista may work

its wierd if it worked the first time around though ?

maybe the disk is bad?

try booting from a dos disk and running fdisk.

The error "drive not found" during os installation will arises because Winxp does not recognize the sata hard disk. You may find the detail of how to install winxp on a sata harddisk in the webpage "http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=165319"