Roadcyclist
Topic Starter
Hi! Please help me with the following problem: I keep getting the error message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer" and below that "Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3". It is a Dell Dimension 8400 w/ SATA drive. My friend had a HUGE level of infection by spyware, trojans, viruses, etc (he has a cable modem-and kids- but no router, no firewall, and out of date A/V software). He used Darik's Boot & Nuke to wipe the drive clean to get rid of the huge volume of junk, thinking an infection was preventing the drive from being seen during the reinstall attempt(because of the same message). The Dell website mentions a very specific & seemingly routine procedure of copying a SATA driver from the Dell Resource CD onto a floppy & then using that driver at the F6 prompt during the Win XP OS install, but it gives the same message whether I use the driver at the F6 prompt or not during the OS install. When I boot the PC without any OS CD, it just goes through the Dell splash screen and then just a black screen w/ a blinking white cursor. Everything seems right in the BIOS- it sees the Western Digital SATA drive. What I've read online seems to point to the need for SATA drives to have a driver installed(extra step) even though the BIOS sees it, unlike IDE drives which are accessible when the BIOS sees it. Could it be that the driver on the specific CD for this PC is the wrong driver? Or maybe I need to do something else to the PC before the OS will see the drive? Does F-Disk or FORMAT work with SATA drives? Could the BIOS be infected, preventing the SATA from being accessed? Any help would be great!