How-To Geek

Hi guys

I'm new to the forum so I hope this isn't duplicated elsewhere - I've searched but I can't see anything.

I've been handed a problem by a colleague and I can't sort it and I thought you might be able to help. He's got a laptop that's been running Ubuntu and he want's it back to WinXP.
He tried to install Windows and it wouldn't recognise the partition so he formatted the drive into NTFS. So we've got a clean, NTFS drive with GRUB in the MBR. Now, when we run the WinXP installation we get the "Setup did not find any hard disk drives" error.

If I had Windows installed, I should be able to access the recovery console and use that to re-write the MBR but because the disc is formatted I can't do that.
I can get to a "grub rescue>" and that's it.

Can anyone help?

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives" error in XP installation can sometimes caused by SATA storage controller which Windows XP does not natively support.

I haven't used XP in quite some time. I may be incorrect but I believe you need to download the SATA drivers and at the beginning after you boot from XP install CD there is a prompt to press a key (an F key) to install drivers. Getting GRUB off the MBR is not your problem. Once you are able to run XP setup the windows bootloader will be placed on MBR. You are getting the grub rescue prompt because XP was not installed, you have no OS and GRUB on MBR is looking for the ubuntu installation it used to point to to boot. Even if you put a Windows bootloader on the MBR your machine will not boot because you have no OS installed. Will be back want to do some research since I can't remember exactly how to get those SATA drivers for you.

http://news.softpedia.com/news.....7807.shtml

From what I have read if you don't have a floppy drive to put the driver on a floppy you are going to have to slipstream the driver with your XP installation CD.

Maybe Rick will see this and have a better solution for you. If ever there is a guy to go to it is him.

Thanks for your answers guys. I'll give these a go and let you know what happens.

There's no floppy drive so if its the SATA drivers I'll have to slipstream the installation unless I can install off USB

Hi Guys

Thanks for all your help - it was the SATA drivers, nothing to do with GRUB at all.

I do have another problem now though which is the wireless network adapter doesn't work. It should (and it was working when the system was running Ubuntu) and I've downloaded all the drivers from the Fujitsu Siemens website (including Launch Manger which is required for the wireless system to work and often ignored when people rebuild Windows).
The odd thing is that the physical buttons work and the light comes on, I can install the drivers and they report the installation is fine but the device doesn't show up in the device manager. I've physically removed it and plugged it back in just to make sure it's not loose but that's fine too.

At the risk of the thread-jacking... any ideas?!