BleepingComputer.com: Fomatting A Sata Hard Diskdrive

I have this machine which has a SATA hard disk drive installed in it. It has window XP loaded in it which is working fine.
Now when I try formatting it to install a different OS in it, it says that the computer did not find any hard drive in the system. It futher asks me to check and see if the hard drives are connected properly and are powered ON.
I am sure the SATA hard drive is okay and connected properly as the current OS is working fine on it.
Please let me know if there are some BIOS setting which are to be changed before I proceed with the formatting.
Thanks in advance
Tito Singh

How are you trying to format the drive?
Are you using a tool from the manufacturer of the hard drive?
Which OS are you trying to load?

I am trying to load XP sp2. I am not using any manufactures tool to format the drive. I have simply insetred the "XP SP2" Cd in the CD ROM drive and selected the first boot priorty as CD ROM in the BIOS. and then I have just followed the intruction the on the screen. I get the message of "no hard drives found" just after I press F8 to select the "IAgree" to start the instalaton.

Is there any particular way to do it. Please help.
Thanks once again
Tito Singh

Yes, this is fairly easy to do - but we'll need the exact make and model number of your system (or the motherboard if it's a custom build) in order to find the proper SATA Controller drivers for you to use.

It'll require pressing F6 at a certain point in the beginning of the installation (where it says "Press F6 to load RAID/SCSI drivers" - and you'll need a floppy disk drive or you'll have to slipstream the drivers into your XP installation CD ( http://www.maximumpc.com/article/How-To--S...tion?page=0%2C1 )

hi i had the same trouble as yourself. all i did was go into the bios and set it up for a ide and turn the sata drive off and it works everytime. This reply might be abit late but hope it helps others

I agree with both usasma and hyperstun. But be aware that you might need a USB floppy disk to install SATA RAID during the f6 session, and some may barely work during installation when suddenly it pops up "insert disk.." as if you haven't inserted the correct disquet in..but actually you did. What you wanna do is, compile another installation XP bootable disc with an application called NLite, where during compilation you can insert the serial keys directly and the best part is to dump all needed SATA RAID installation files in. Then you wont need to press F6. Good luck.

ps: Because I was a bit mixed up yesterday, sorry for the misunderstanding. What I meant to say is some USB floppy may barely work during installation for I experienced one with few Sony USB floppy. Sorry again.

Just FYI - the first time that I did this, the system didn't acknowledge that the floppy disk was inserted. Later on in the installation it asked for it again - but found it before I could get the floppy hooked up. It installed seamlessly tho'.

Future installations would require the floppy and would acknowledge it when I inserted it - the only difference was that (on the first one) the disk wasn't formatted.