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I am helping my brother in law out trying to do a non destructive repair using the installation disc. When we went through all the steps and got to the section that shows the hard drives it does not recognize the hard drive and won't let us do a repair. If we wanted to do a clean install it still would not recognize the hdd.
I decided to check bios and see what was recognized and in the hdd section it showed that the hdd was a SCSI. It is not a SCSI drive. We checked PC Wizard 2008 and it showed SCSI. All the places show that it is a SCSI. What is causing this? It is not a SCSI drive but a SATA drive. Can anyone tell me what has happened?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

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— good that the installer now sees the disk (thanks to ’s pointer about loading the storage driver). The next problem — SP2 updates failing after a repair install — is common. The fastest, least error-prone route is to gather the error detail, reset Windows Update, then install the full service pack offline if needed.

First, capture the error text so troubleshooting is targeted: open C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log and look for lines with Error = 0x... or “Failed to download/install”. Post that code if further help is needed. Common, reliable steps to try now are:

Stop update services, rename the update folders, then restart the services:

net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
net stop cryptsvc
ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 catroot2.old
net start cryptsvc
net start bits
net start wuauserv

Run sfc /scannow (XP will prompt for the original CD) to repair system files. If Windows Update still fails, download the full standalone Service Pack (SP2 or, better, SP3 which is cumulative) from Microsoft and install it locally — this avoids Update’s online installer problems. If reinstalling or rebuilding the CD is an option, slipstreaming the service pack and current SATA/RAID drivers with a tool like nLite will produce a single, up-to-date installer.

One more caution: if the motherboard SATA mode was changed after installation (IDE vs AHCI/RAID), do not flip it without preparing Windows first — that can cause a crash. To switch safely you either reinstall with the new mode or enable the correct storage driver/service in the registry (service name varies: msahci, iaStor, etc.) before rebooting. If updates still fail, post the exact WindowsUpdate.log error code and the storage driver name shown in Device Manager and follow-up troubleshooting can be provided.

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Member Avatar for jbennet

XP detects SATA as SCSI because SATA didnt exist when XP was made.

Youll notice that when installing XP RTM you have to hit f6 when it says "hit f6 for SCSI/RAID drivers" in order for your SATA disk to be detected.

Linux does a similar thing.

IDE drives are hda1, hda2, hdb etc..... whereas SATA/SCSI drives (some sata driver are shown as IDE however, if they are in compatibility mode) are sda1, sda2, sdb etc...

Member Avatar for Member #23858

Yep, I hit F6 and used the floppy and it worked. Now we have a problem that it won't install any more of the SP2 updates that it says we need. It says it failed to install.

Member Avatar for jbennet

yeah doning a repair reinstall removes prettymuch all updates. You definately need to reinstall the individual updates, maybe SP2.

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