here is a new capture of my disk management. i created the partition in PW with the bootable disk. i then made sure my dvd was set to boot first and then loaded my xp disk. same thing happened as before. i don't get the option of which drive to install to. thanks again
It is not clear to me what you have done.
You seem to have marked the 100mb partition active again - not what Greg suggested - but it's ok the way you have done it.
How recent is your XP install disk? Does it include SP2 , or , preferably, SP3 ?
Early versions only recognised HD's up to certain size.
Also, SATA drivers are needed by XP - which I believe was mentioned earlier.
If NO, load your SATA controllers drivers at this screen.
Try deleting the formatting on the XP partition you created to use the XP installer to create and format the partition.
You may need to both add the SATA controller driver AND SP2 if your XP CD doesn't have it.
Use this: How To Slipstream SATA Drivers Into XP CD
If necessary also choose Service Packs from menu to use this standalone download of SP2: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
Last edited by gregrocker; 20 Jan 2010 at 21:01.
Something that might be important in this situation.
First, restoring the boot was important so I felt making the Reserve partition active was the easiest way to do that. But....
My tests, and no other corroboration, shows installing XP on the same drive with Win 7, which has the System Reserved Partition, may result in an error keeping XP from installing, normally during the first reboot. Removing the System Reserved Partition should allow for a normal install.
Hopefully it was my mistake causing the error, but if it happens, do not make repeated attempts to install.
This is not associated with the possible drive problem.
I definitely think it has something to do with the SATA driver (or lack of). I am installing xp pro sp2. As theog suggested, I hit F6 during setup and got the message "could not find floppy to load OEM drivers" I am going to try what Saltgrass is suggesting. I am going to include captures from disk management and partition wizard. I want to make sure I am going to delete the right partition according to Saltgrass. (system reserved) I also went to download nLite page as gregrocker suggested but all are for sp3. which one do I download. Thanks for the help...I am a newbie to all this.
i don't have a floppy drive
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