BleepingComputer.com: Sata Hard Drive and Windows Re-Install

I want to do a reformat of my hard drive but its a WD Caviar Blue / SE / SE16 (SATA II) and windows xp Media Center Edition won't recognize the hard drive during install, because its a sata unless I install the drivers from a floppy disk. I looked on the Western Digital sight but not sure which file I need. Can anybody point me to which driver I need so that windows will be able to find my hard drive during the install.

Western Digital wont have the drivers that you need.
Whats the make/model of the system?

I have a dell XPS 600.

The SATA driver for your Dell XPS 600 is here: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R105373&SystemID=XPS_PNT_P4_DXG&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=9711&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=0&libid=41&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=136025

Filename: R105373.exe

The "Installation instructions" for this item on the download page are irrelevant as they don't explain how to install the driver prior to a fresh Windows installation.

Run the file and it will create a new "Dell" folder tree containing ten files.
Copy those ten files to the root of a floppy disk (copy the files only, not the folders or sub-folders).

Press F6 during Windows Setup when you see "Press F6.." at bottom of screen.

Leave the floppy disk in the drive and the files should be copied just before the reboot.

From what I've read elsewhere, you may need to try the above process several times before the driver installation is successful on a Dell PC.

Should you have need to look for a SATA driver in future on a different PC, remember that it's not supplied by the drive manufacturer because the driver is for the SATA Controller on the motherboard, it's not for the hard drive itself.
Therefore, you need to be looking on either the PC maker's website, or the motherboard manufacturer's website.

This post has been edited by pip22: 20 April 2011 - 09:18 AM

Hopefully you have a floppy drive and can get past this problem, but there could be another solution. If you go into the bios there's usually a way to change some SATA settings. Since you say you have a Dell this screen shot might help.



If you've got an older model Dell the BIOS might look different, and there should be another option to change. Let us know.

Thanks for the help. I'm gonna work on it when I have some free time. I had done this process awhile back but couldn't remember where the driver was that I needed and wanted to make sure I had the right one before re-installing and getting stuck. To the second poster well my computer didn't come with a floppy drive but I installed one awhile back which I haven't used much but comes in handy for situations like these.

Ok I tried installing the drivers from a floppy drive in the windows setup but I'm getting an error that says txtsetup.oem cannot be found. Any ideas?