Member Avatar for Loopah

Hello. I am looking to reformat my PC. The specs are in my profile and I have a couple pics to show you that might solve my problem. I have reformatted in the past and had to put in a disk with a file on it for like my SATA or something. Well I have never known how to do this and I think I reformat wrong because of it. At the moment when I startup the screen comes up and says that the "BIOS are not found" for my PROMISE Fasttrak... I want this to be fixed when I reformat as well... Here are the pics of my PC specs. I hope this helps.

[Devices]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/loopah/device.jpg[/IMG]

[DriverHQ]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/loopah/driverhq.jpg[/IMG]

[Everest]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/loopah/everest.jpg[/IMG]


As you can see I would really like to make my reformat a perfect transition unlike the past. Any more information you need just let me know. Thanks!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by BinaryMayhem

Dani AI

Generated

Brief summary tied to the thread: is on the right track to reformat, and correctly flagged that the installer not seeing the drive is driver-related rather than a “bad format.” Below is a compact, practical workflow and a few cautions to make the reinstall clean and avoid surprises.

Start-up checklist before wiping

  • Archive all personal files and make a full image of the system drive so the current state can be restored if needed.
  • Gather Windows product key and installers for network and video adapters (these are useful right after install).
  • Export or note current BIOS settings and disconnect any nonessential drives to avoid accidentally formatting the wrong disk.

Options to make the installer see the drive

  • Use the installer’s third‑party driver path: prepare the controller driver on removable media that the Windows XP text‑mode setup can load (the classic “press to load third‑party drivers” routine).
  • If no floppy is available, create a custom install CD with the controller/chipset drivers integrated (slipstream). Copy the XP CD to hard disk, inject drivers with a slipstreaming tool, build an ISO and burn.
  • If the motherboard BIOS offers a SATA/IDE compatibility mode, switching to that mode can let the standard installer detect the drive without extra drivers — but do not toggle this if an existing hardware array must be preserved; changing modes can render a RAID array inaccessible.

Post‑install order and troubleshooting

  • Install chipset/RAID drivers first, then network, then video. Confirm Windows Update or vendor downloads for the latest drivers.
  • If a controller option‑ROM message appears at boot with no drives attached, it is usually informational; disabling the option ROM in BIOS is possible if that avoids a confusing message.
  • If problems persist, boot a rescue/live CD to confirm the drives are visible outside Windows; capture hardware IDs for exact driver matching.

This preserves data and minimizes the chance of a failed install because the installer cannot see the disk.

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Member Avatar for Loopah

bump. Help needed please.

Member Avatar for BinaryMayhem

okay? im not sure what your probem is here? why do you want to reformat? cause of the message your bios spits out about not finding a any drives? (im assuming that what you mean... cause if your bios was not found, your computer would not start)
do you think you need to reformat because you get this message? that message is not generated from a "bad format". talking about bout formats... what do you mean by that... what is bad about it?

from you motherboard specs you I see you have 2 raid controllers. 1 is the default, the other is the extended. the reason why you get the "no drives found" or simular message is because there is nothing hooked up to promise side of the contorler. this is just textual information about how hardware is hooked up. nothign to be worried about. the extended funcionaltiy can be turned off in your bios, but since I dont know how your bios is layed out or what information is in there to edit... I cant help ya. so I suggest you just deal with it. as far as being prompted for a driver disk when you install windows. you just gona have to deal with that too... t he reason for this is because the drivers for your sata drive are not found on the windows cd. since windows can't find the drivers, it doesn't know how to interface with you hard drive. unless you slipstream those drives onto your windows cd, you will always need to do this. or you can just wait for the next release of windows (windows vista, they will support the sata technology right out of the box)

your 2 controllers are:
VIA K8T800Pro and Promise 20378.

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