hi all,
i tried to format XP Home Ed. end when it reach the point where it asked whether to repair or to install.....in bot cases it just couldnt find my hard drive...? a friend of mine suggested to go into the set up the BIOS and change the SATA configuration...but it seems that there are no such commands....! i need help! it is a ULi BIOS v1.13 (M5287)
How is the ultimate boot disk gonna help me?

Go into your bios by pressing (depending on make of motherboard) one of the f1-f12 or del key. Normally its f1, del, f12, or f8

In your bios (again depends on bios) should give you an option for changing hard drive configuration, apon opening that up SHOULD show your main drive and the size of it...if you dont see it, then your drive, is either not powered, or connected properly to the motherboard and that is why it cant see your drive. You should check ALL cables going into the hard drive and from the hard drive into the motherboard.

If you have any other questions or get it working, please post here.

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thanks for the tip......i found out though that during the XP installation at the very beginning it was asking if i want to install a third party.........by pressing F6....and that was the solution......Floppy still rules..hehehhe

@Broc, the F6 method is the one supported by XP and other versions of MS Windows to add drivers necessary to install windows before the installation itself.

For example, if the boot/system disk is connected to some scsi card, and if XP doesn't include the proper drivers for that card, then how windows would recognize the card and the disk so it can be installed there?

You use F6 to add the appropriate driver (which should have been included with the scsi card), so the windows installation process could "know" the scsi card and the attached disk are there.

In the example, with the scsi card should have been included instructions to use the F6 method, and the drivers (in floppy or cd).

As described with some scsi cards not supported by windows XP, the same happens with SATA disks (which was the original case of the author of this topic), since windows XP doesn't know about this kind of hardware.

So, to install any "new" technology (in this case, "new" as meaning technology not known to XP when it was developed in 2001, for example) you need to add the appropriate drivers, by using the F6 method every time you want to install XP from scratch.

Of course, if XP is already installed, and you want to add additional hardware to that already-installed XP (as oppose to re-installing XP again from scratch using the new hardware as an essential part of the installation process), then a regular driver installation would be enough, and the F6 method is irrelevant for this case. For example, adding a second sata disk (for data, not a boot/system windows hard disk), while preserving the current XP installation, needs a regular driver installation, not the F6 method.

BTW, the same method exists also for other windows versions, including Vista and Seven. But, in the case of sata drives, Vista and Seven don't need the F6 method to be installed to this type of drive, since they already include appropriate drivers to discover those disks during their installation process, and consequently they are able to be installed using sata disk as boot/system drives.

For anyone to know about the F6 method, it would be enough to read the instructions of any new hardware before trying to use the hardware itself. For new sata disks, just go to the manufacturer's website before installing it.

I hope this helps.

If I may condense ady's post above: you will need an F6 floppy if stock Windows XP does not contain the appropriate driver for your boot hard disk controller. Typically these will include RAID, AHCI, and many SATA add-in-boards.

Now, my 2c: if you do not have a floppy drive, there are ways to integrate the appropriate driver - I use vLite - but that is a discussion for another forum.

First of fall press deletion key 7 to 8 time and setting up your first boot device and than save changes.After when you save changes
install the CD in drive.The installation start automatically and copy all files for new hard drive.It's take several minutes.Than restart your PC and install drivers.This process is easy but safely..You can also format manually for XP 7 home.