Member Avatar for bcase21

Hey guys...

Just finished up a new pc with a MSI motherboard (K8M890 chipset) with a WD sata hard drive.

All of the hardware appears to be functioning properly, and the hard drive is present in BIOS. When trying to load Windows XP I receive an error - no hard drive found. This is immediately upon installation, I do not get the option to choose a drive,partition,etc...

I'm assuming that I need to load the drivers from the MSI cd, but its not bootable. So how can I do that without first loading an OS? I read similar topics on this board, but most ended with 'load the sata drivers.' Shouldn't my MSI disc be bootable? Or am I overlooking something?

I should mention that this is my first sata hd install, but power and sata cables are connected and as I mentioned the drive is present in BIOS.

Any other information needed please let me know. Thanks in advance for your help!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

Dani AI

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Short expert note: this is the classic XP-installer vs SATA-controller problem. As pointed out, people often solve it by supplying the controller driver during setup, and 's tip about making the USB floppy visible early in POST is practical. Below are clear, tested options you can use with an MSI K8M890 + WD SATA disk so an XP install will succeed.

First, quick hardware/BIOS checks (do these before changing anything): confirm the SATA power connector and data cable, try another SATA port, and make sure the drive shows in BIOS. Look for a SATA-mode setting (IDE/Compatibility vs AHCI/RAID). Temporarily switching the controller to "IDE/Compatibility" lets the stock XP installer see the drive without extra drivers — useful for a fast test or one-off install. Note: compatibility mode disables AHCI features (NCQ/hot-swap); re-enabling AHCI later requires vendor drivers.

If you want the controller in AHCI/RAID mode at install time, you have three reliable routes:

  • Use the vendor "text-mode" driver during setup (the small .inf/.sys/.cat files). Those files are typically on the MSI support CD or downloadable from MSI for your exact board model; copy them to a floppy (or a USB floppy that BIOS maps as A:) and load them during the text-mode portion of XP setup.
  • Slipstream the text-mode driver into the XP install CD with nLite: extract the vendor driver package, add it as a "text-mode" driver in nLite, build a new ISO, burn and install. This avoids floppies altogether.
  • As a last resort, install XP on the disk by connecting it to another PC (or use a temporary IDE drive), then move it back to the MSI board and install the MSI storage/chipset drivers inside Windows.

After installation, install the chipset and storage drivers from MSI for best stability and performance. For driver packages, always use the exact motherboard model from MSI's support site so you get the correct text-mode files.

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Member Avatar for jbennet

for most SATA or RAID installs of XP, even in this day and age, you must use a floppy disk with the drivers (.inf?) for your motherboard. I had to buy a floppy disk drive just for this reason but they are cheap so meh

Member Avatar for bcase21

for most SATA or RAID installs of XP, even in this day and age, you must use a floppy disk with the drivers (.inf?) for your motherboard. I had to buy a floppy disk drive just for this reason but they are cheap so meh

Really... well, I'll give that a shot. Guess I just need to find where I can d/l the drivers, because the mobo only came with a cd. Then get a floppy drive too. Can't believe this is such a common problem! Thanks for your help though.

But if there are any other easier suggestions, I'm still all ears!

Member Avatar for jbennet

the drivers might be on the cd and you may just need to copy them to disk(s)

You hit F6. It should say something like "hit f6 to install RAID or SCSI drivers" (SATA wasnt invented when XP came out)

Member Avatar for bcase21

Ok... didn't think of that.

Thanks again!

Member Avatar for mvns84

hi. i just bought a msi 1719 laptop with a samsung 160 gb sata drive. i could not load xp as it failed to recognise the drive, even though the bios had detected the drive. if i need to install vista do i need to install the driver for the sata disk or will vista recognise it ? i do not have any floppy drive, so i will need to pick up a usb floppy drive. can i install the sata drivers from there for xp?

thanks

Member Avatar for jbennet

Vista has much better SATA support than XP. It didnt ask me for a disk when i installed it on my SATA system whereas XP did.

A usb floppy might work for xp

Member Avatar for chuck441

Your advice is good, jbennet, and I can confirm that a USB floppy will do the trick -- but have it plugged in before you start up the PC.

Chuck

Member Avatar for jbennet

I tried the USB floppy out on my thinkpad (circa 2000) for installing Win2k. In my case i had to go into the BIOS and enable "Legacy Floppy Support" beacuse otherwise the floppy went to E:\ like a USB key instead of A:\ which was where windows expected it

On Vista you can use a USB key or CD-R i think

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