Whirlpool

I was previously running on Vista on my laptop which i decided to get rid off and go back to XP, but when i was booting from the installation disk at the
Press Enter to continue set up window xp
press R to repair window XP
screen

after pressing Enter it gave me an error saying no hard drive has been detected, the thing is i do have a drive and im currently running Ubuntu on it. does anyone know what might be the problem and i can fix it?

thanks in advance

XP might not have the relevant drivers to see the SATA hard drive.

Tell us what model your laptop is.

You'll either need to jump into its BIOS settings and enable the legacy IDE emulation mode stuff, or you'll need to download the SATA drivers from thel laptop manufacturer site and put them on a floppy and press F6 on XP INstall startup to add the drivers so it can see the SATA controller.

This is what happens with a 7 year old operating system unfortunately. Off topic, but what made you remove Vista? Are you a bit lean on RAM?

well i have two hard disk one is Fujitsu MHW2160B another one is WDC WD2500BEVS-1, atleast that what my ubuntu is telling me. i don't have a floppy drive, could you show me where i can access a guide on to enable legacy IDE through BIOS?

Its not about the ram, vista as a whole.. it runs a lot of unnecessary stuff for you which sucks up a lot of power.

What is your laptop make and model? It's prob unlikely you'll get the IDE option in a laptop BIOS.

Sorry, not sure how you're going to get the drivers into XP without a floppy, Vista allows for these early drivers off CDs and USB keys too. Sorry, not trying to push Vista but as you can see that's 2 things it has up on XP already.

Have a browse on the laptop manufacturer site under support section for your model, they might even have instructions on getting into BIOS, they might have a BIOS update, and even have instructions on downgrading to XP. Possibly even an option to purchase some low cost XP recovery discs for your laptop, which takes care of this sort of issue.

I got a HP Pavilion DV9653CL. Its not like i hate vista completely if i know it would be this much trouble i would of left it as vista, because i'm kind of new to laptop being using desktop til now. The problem is while installing my ubuntu i formated the disks completely which i lost the recovery drive as well so even if i wanted i couldn't go back to vista. I tried looking at HP for a recovery CD, but their mailing don't seem to support Australia and there is no download for the CD =/

jiang writes...

The problem is while installing my ubuntu i formated the disks completely which i lost the recovery drive as well so even if i wanted i couldn't go back to vista

You should have created the recovery DVDs straight after you started your laptop, as per the instructions.

But anyway, thats OK – you'd still be able to reinstall Vista from anyones standard/generic Vista install DVD you can get your hands on. You just enter the product key thats stuck on the sticker underneath your laptop.

There won't be any download for the CD no, if you can't borrow a mates Vista DVD from a desktop machine for example, then you may have to call HP. Ask them if they have an XP recovery disc set for you for that model if you're still keen on sticking with XP.

OK, thanks alot for fast replies. i think i will just try and get a copy of vista from a friend and leave XP for now. once again thanks for your help really appreciated.

Hmm, i saw on the net that i was able to slip stream the SATA drivers into a XP disc and that should fix my problem, could someone help me find these drivers for my HDs i been looking for them on google but the results are very confusing and I'm not that sure what a SATA driver should look like. Once again my two discs are Fujitsu MHW2160B another one is WDC WD2500BEVS-1 getting anyone of them and i will be happy. Thanks again in advance!

Doesnt matter what the drives are, what you need to do is go to the HP site and go to drivers section for your HP Pavilion DV9653CL. UNder the Windows XP section you should be able to download SATA drivers. Extract them, then follow the slipstream guide. Drivers look like .sys and .inf files etc.

Thanks alot! Can't say how thankful i am, finally got XP to run on my laptop! If anyone is going through the same thing this site
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1174512
has alist of drivers that you might want.

excellent!