problem installing xp pro to laptop

Hello everyone. I bought a Gateway laptop (model MT6821) from BB about 3 weeks. It had Vista Home Premium preloaded on it. I use the laptop for my business programs and it has crashed constantly since I bought it. I got so fed up with it that I bought XP Pro and am trying to install that on the laptop. When I try to install and get to the Windows XP Professional Setup screen, it says "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" and then it says "Setup can not continue". How can I fix this problem so that I can get XP Pro installed and get this thing stable enough to be usable for me? Thanks to everyone.

blackpowder said:

Hello everyone. I bought a Gateway laptop (model MT6821) from BB about 3 weeks. It had Vista Home Premium preloaded on it. I use the laptop for my business programs and it has crashed constantly since I bought it. I got so fed up with it that I bought XP Pro and am trying to install that on the laptop. When I try to install and get to the Windows XP Professional Setup screen, it says "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" and then it says "Setup can not continue". How can I fix this problem so that I can get XP Pro installed and get this thing stable enough to be usable for me? Thanks to everyone.

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Generally you always format and re-install any Gateway, Dell, etc crapware off the computer before you use it.

Have you checked the BIOS?
You may need to install a driver for your hard drive in able to get it work with the installation setup... I have never in my life had to do this with XP before, but as notebooks are so proprietry, you may have to.

Thanks for the reply zacdl. What would I check in the BIOS? I am wondering if XP Pro is needing a SATA hard drive driver? If so, they say you need an floppy to do this and I do not have one. Anyone know if there is another way to install a SATA driver without using a floppy? Does anyone have any other ideas would the problem could be??

blackpowder said:

Thanks for the reply zacdl. What would I check in the BIOS?

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Just make sure the hard drive is enabled, for starters.

I am wondering if XP Pro is needing a SATA hard drive driver?

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I don't know what type of hard drive your notebook takes. All I know is XP gives you the option to install drivers before the actual setup continues (One of the first things, says something like "Press FX to install third party drivers" or something. I can't remember what key it is, either.) You install the drivers- XP can see the drive, and it keeps going.
Like I said- I've never had to do this though, and would be interested to see if it is actually the problem.

You should be able to get to Gateway's website and download a driver. Rip it to a CD.

I can find a SATA driver on Gateway's website, but it says that you must use a floppy drive to install. Problem is I don't have a floppy, either internal or external USB to use. Do you think that there is another way??

You can try to slipstream the Sata drivers into the XP CD using nLite, or you can just buy an external USB floppy disk

Hello Everyone, I went out and bought a USB floppy disk to install the SATA driver, but when I try to make the floppy with the SATA driver on it, it gives me an error saying "Windows Error N. 5 Access is denied." Can anyone give me any advice on what to do next??

You can't use anything but a floppy with XP to load the SATA drivers, and obviously you're having issues with a USB floppy drive... or...

You can integrate them and make a custom XP SP2 installation CD with the SATA drivers integrated. I wrote a guide about how to do that in the recent past, and you can find it here:

http://members.cox.net/br0adband/How_To_Integrate_SATA_Drivers_into_A_Custom_Windows_CD.zip

Download it and print it out if you can and keep it handy, but if you follow along with it in Acrobat Reader of Foxit or whatever your PDF reader of choice, in no time at all (almost none) you'll have a brand new freshly burned copy of XP Service Pack 2 with the SATA drivers integrated and ready to install.

Good luck...

blackpowder said:

Hello everyone. I bought a Gateway laptop (model MT6821) from BB about 3 weeks. It had Vista Home Premium preloaded on it. I use the laptop for my business programs and it has crashed constantly since I bought it. I got so fed up with it that I bought XP Pro and am trying to install that on the laptop. When I try to install and get to the Windows XP Professional Setup screen, it says "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" and then it says "Setup can not continue". How can I fix this problem so that I can get XP Pro installed and get this thing stable enough to be usable for me? Thanks to everyone.

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I've seen lots of threads on something like this you might want to try also. It might or might not work.

Couple of examples taken from threads, do a search:

1. WinXP doesn't recognize the data in your MBR after Vista.

2. Boot to your XP installation CD, go into the repair console and type in fixmbr then fixboot.

3. I know on windows xp you can insert the install cd and open up the recovery console. From there type fixmbr and fixboot.

Just a suggestion...

He just needs SATA drivers. That Gateway laptop has an SATA drive in it and an SATA controller and doesn't offer the ability to make the controller go into ACHI mode which would let the default (generic) SATA drivers in XP work - that's the problem. I owned a Gateway laptop recently and had the exact same problems: an unmodified non-SATA integrated XP SP2 CD will not install on current Gateway laptops.

You must integrate the drivers into a new custom XP SP2 CD - the laptops don't have floppies either so that's not an option, and they don't play well with USB floppy drives either. I spent a week trying to figure that stuff out for myself with my Gateway MX6930 and MX6931 laptops, and the end result was <tada> gotta make that CD, there's just no other way to do it.

blackpowder said:

it gives me an error saying "Windows Error N. 5 Access is denied." Can anyone give me any advice on what to do next??

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Sorry to threadjack here, but this is the on;y reference I have found to this error. Did you figure out what it meant? I am trying to make an F6 disk for Vista 64bit, and I keep getting this error as well. Sorry to post here, but I wonder if you know what it means?