[Mychal]

I have a Compaq Presario C500 laptop that i bought 2 weeks ago with Vista installed on it. After a week of experiencing how HORRIBLE Vista is i formatted the hdd with an old Windows ME cd and then tried installing XP w/SP2. Now it will install the drivers and then i get a message that it cannot find the hdd, and to make sure that the hdd is turned on or connected properly? I can see the hdd in the bios and can run diagnostics on it but the xp cd cant see it to install.
HELP!!! What do i do?

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Try this: Go into BIOS setup and turn off "SATA native support". Save changes and exit the BIOS. WinXP setup should now recognize the disk. Oh, and why did you bother with an ME CD? You can delete, create and format partitions with an XP setup disc. using an ME disc was uneccessary.

Edited by pip22, 02 May 2007 - 12:29 PM.

[pip22]

Try this: Go into BIOS setup and turn off "SATA native support". Save changes and exit the BIOS. WinXP setup should now recognize the disk. Oh, and why did you bother with an ME CD? You can delete, create and format partitions with an XP setup disc. using an ME disc was uneccessary.

Edited by pip22, 02 May 2007 - 12:29 PM.

[Mychal]

I have a Compaq Presario C500 laptop that i bought 2 weeks ago with Vista installed on it. After a week of experiencing how HORRIBLE Vista is i formatted the hdd with an old Windows ME cd and then tried installing XP w/SP2. Now it will install the drivers and then i get a message that it cannot find the hdd, and to make sure that the hdd is turned on or connected properly? I can see the hdd in the bios and can run diagnostics on it but the xp cd cant see it to install.
HELP!!! What do i do?

Thanks Pip, ill give that a try. I only had the old ME cd at the time, i went and bought the xp cd later.

[Mychal]

ok..the next dumb question...how do i turn off the native sata support in the bios?

[Benzooor]

Usually with compaqs I believe it's F10 while you're booting up, but I don't know for sure. Then look for something that says "SATA Operation"

Also on a side note: I've found on Dell's that changing from "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" to "Raid Autodetect / ATA" will fix this as well, but those might not be options for you.

[Fenor]

*UPDATE* -- Seems as if Mychal got XP installed, but is having some driver issues. A new topic was started HERE pertaining to that issue in which I am helping. Just wanted everyone who is following this topic to know that.

Fenor