[highland403]

I was given a 1 year old Gateway laptop computer. The hard drive has been wiped clean so there is no OS on it. I am trying to install XP home on it but XP is saying the hard drive can't be located.

This computer had Vista home on it and it ran fine; well, as fine as Vista can run. So, there shouldn't be anything wrong with the hard drive.

This should be an easy install, but my luck with computers lately hasn't been that great.

Any help with getting XP on this computer would be appreciated.

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Need to feed it a driver for XP setup as the hard drive will be in what's called AHCI mode, which XP cannot see without help. An option may be available in the BIOS to change this, though this seems to be disappearing from recent machines.
Normally you feed it an appropriate driver from a floppy disk drive, the driver you get from Gateway's website for your particular model, if one exists for your model.
While you're there you may as well download all the XP drivers, of which you may not find a lot, if any. So you may find it's a fruitless exercise anyway.

[Neil Jones]

Need to feed it a driver for XP setup as the hard drive will be in what's called AHCI mode, which XP cannot see without help. An option may be available in the BIOS to change this, though this seems to be disappearing from recent machines.
Normally you feed it an appropriate driver from a floppy disk drive, the driver you get from Gateway's website for your particular model, if one exists for your model.
While you're there you may as well download all the XP drivers, of which you may not find a lot, if any. So you may find it's a fruitless exercise anyway.

[highland403]

I searched the BIOS but can't find anything relating to AHCI mode. I went to Gateway's website and entered the serial number of the laptop. Gateway gave me a download for a driver called D20109-001-001.exe - Intel SATA/Mass Storage Controller version: 7.0.0.1020 Is this what I need?

I downloaded it to a flash drive but it is a zipped file. Should I unzip it on the flash drive or leave it zipped? If I have to unzip it, do I need to remove everything else off of the flash drive?

During Windows setup, I get a screen that says "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver..." I assume this is when the driver somehow gets put onto the harddrive and Setup will walk me through this installation?

[Neil Jones]

XP will only use F6 in conjunction with floppy disk drives, internal and USB ones. You cannot feed it one from a flash drive.

What is your Gateway laptop model number please?

[highland403]

Model M-6750

[Neil Jones]

That laptop has no driver downloads for Windows XP apart from the chipset and the sound. So while you can get XP on it, none of the hardware will work. You will get no Gateway help with that, I'm afraid. You would need to source XP drivers manually.

As documented in the Readme file for the Intel SATA/Mass Storage Controller version: 7.6.0.1011 driver which is the one you want, you download it, run it and then:

1. In the C:\Cabs\D20238-001-001 folder, there are two subfolders titled F6 Floppy x86 and F6 Floppy x64.

2. Copy the contents to the F6 Floppy x86 or F6 Floppy x64 folders to a floppy disk, depending on which type of operating system you are installing.

Note: The x86 folder contains the ICH8M chipset files for a 32-bit operating system. The x64 folder contains the files for a 64-bit operating system.

Note: The F6 floppy install files are provided as a courtesy. Gateway only supports the operating system originally sold with your computer.

[highland403]

Sorry, but you are way over my head. I don't understand what your quote is saying.

If I can't install XP without doing a lot of searching for drivers, I think I will just reinstall Vista.



Thanks for your help though, I really appreciate it.

Edited by highland403, 02 January 2010 - 04:31 PM.