Member Avatar for thegoodphathead

im trying 2 setup xp home edition for my mother who is a famous "Garden knome"... i tryed booting from the cd and and installing a new copy...but get a "no hardrive found" and it stops there. i even chnged the boot order to cd 1st, then harddrive 2nd.
HP laptop.

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Short expert summary and practical plan tied to earlier replies by , and . The most useful next steps are: verify whether the HP BIOS actually lists the hard disk, preserve any data on the drive before reinstalling, and then either supply the correct storage driver to the XP installer or create an install disc that already contains that driver. The posts here correctly point toward a controller/driver mismatch; the checklist below fills in how to build a working XP install medium and how to validate the hardware.

Recommended slipstream workflow (on a separate working PC):

  1. Copy the full contents of the original XP disc to a folder.
  2. Download the laptop's storage/chipset driver package from HP (or the chipset vendor) and extract the package with 7‑Zip or similar to reveal the .inf/.sys files.
  3. Run nLite, point it at the XP folder, choose the Drivers section and add the extracted driver folder. When nLite asks how to integrate, add the storage driver as an early/text-mode driver so Setup sees the disk during install.
  4. Let nLite build a bootable ISO, burn to CD (or prepare a USB installer with a tool that supports XP), then boot the HP laptop from that media and continue installation. After Windows is running, install chipset and vendor drivers from HP.

Additional checks and fallbacks:

  • If the BIOS does not list the hard disk at all, treat that as a hardware problem: reseat the drive, test it in a USB enclosure or in another PC, and recover any data before wiping.
  • If HP does not provide XP-era drivers for that model, consider using the shipped OS or running XP in a virtual machine instead of forcing a full reinstall.
    These steps expand on the helpful pointers from and while prioritizing data safety and a clean install path.

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Member Avatar for thegoodphathead

...anyone out there?

Member Avatar for Chaky

Try changing BIOS settings for hard drive to something like "compatible" (if it is Vista-ready laptop).

Member Avatar for craigers

is the hard drive a sata? if it is you may need to load the drivers while the windows cd is starting (watch the bottom of the screen for something like 'press F3 to load third party sata/raid drivers')... not sure what F key but it will tell you.

if you dont have the floppy for the driver chances are they are on a system cd that came with the computer. there should be a utility that when run will write the files to a floppy.

Member Avatar for Chaky

is the hard drive a sata? if it is you may need to load the drivers while the windows cd is starting (watch the bottom of the screen for something like 'press F3 to load third party sata/raid drivers')... not sure what F key but it will tell you.

It's F6.

That's why they're popularly called f6 drivers.

Member Avatar for craigers

opps... well I was half way there. :$ lol. Gotta give a Linux guy some credit... its been a while.

o well. as long as the info is passed and helpful ;)

Member Avatar for Chaky

I doubt it, because today's laptops usually don't have floppy drives, while XP INSISTS on floppy drive (?) when it comes to f6 drivers.. That part of MS-thinking I will never understand.

Only chance for getting those drivers to work is by slipstreaming Setup CD.

Member Avatar for craigers

true. i was kind of thinking that but my friends laptop he just bought was a dell and it surprisingly did have a floppy.

one can always download the sata drivers from hp if there is no disk.

I did do this once when I built and setup the server where i work, it didn't have a floppy so i copied the drivers to a jump drive and loaded them that way. I used it the same way a floppy would be used in that situation.

then again it wasn't xp home. maybe this would be of some help?
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

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