I have been asked by a friend to install XP (genuine copy) onto her Amilo Pi 1505 laptop.

The laptop is 2 years old (not that it has anything to do with it) but it came without the Vista disc's, as it came from a company that had gone into liquidation.

As i say she has a genuine version of XP that she bought to upgrade her old PC that is now dead.

When i try to boot from the XP CD it says it cannot find the HDD, yet everything works OK in Vista.

Any suggestions? - in plain English please I'm no computer wizz kid (obviously )

That means that XP does not have drivers for the controller the internal hd is connected to. You will need to use the internet and search fujitsus website in search of the drivers. Once you have them, you need to put them on a floppy and press F6 during the XP setup when it prompts for third party drivers and follow the onscreen prompts.

Chances are you will also need chipset/video/sound and a multitude of other drivers once the OS is installed.

^^^ what he said. It probably has a SATA disk. You should be able to find the F6 driver disc at Fujitsu's site, as well as all the other drivers you will need.

If the laptop doesn't have a floppy, you'll need a USB floppy drive. I've found some models don't work with XP- but using another type worked fine.

Have a look in the bios, press F2 on boot. You may have an option to enable IDE Emulation. May not be called this but it should stand out when you find it. HTH

To confirm, that model Amilo does have a SATA drive, as I've worked on one.

IDE emulation is certainly an option with HP SATA-equipped laptops I have dealings with. And this solves the issue for me, when installing XP from an image CD.

This may help:

support downloads.html Fujitsu Siemens Computers

Good luck

Steve

I downloaded the SATA driver from Fujitsu's website last night, however when i rebooted (& F6) with the flash drive (with driver on) plugged in, it went past the 'can't find HDD' stage but still wouldn't let me install XP.

Does the driver have to be on a floppy, or would a flash drive be OK?

I can't try the flash drive anymore however as i wiped it to try a different driver and now the flash drive isn't recognized (not quite true, as it now prompts me to inset a disc into G: which is where the drive is plugged into, it won't even let me format it, so i fear it is now dead?)

The things that are changeable are very limited in the BIOS, IDE emulation cannot be done.

Steve, that was where i got the SATA driver from.

Keep the ideas coming please.

I downloaded the SATA driver from Fujitsu's website last night, however when i rebooted (& F6) with the flash drive (with driver on) plugged in, it went past the 'can't find HDD' stage but still wouldn't let me install XP.

Does the driver have to be on a floppy, or would a flash drive be OK?

I can't try the flash drive anymore however as i wiped it to try a different driver and now the flash drive isn't recognized (not quite true, as it now prompts me to inset a disc into G: which is where the drive is plugged into, it won't even let me format it, so i fear it is now dead?)

The things that are changeable are very limited in the BIOS, IDE emulation cannot be done.

Steve, that was where i got the SATA driver from.

Keep the ideas coming please.

What stage did it get too before not letting you install,

Also did you unzip the driver onto the usb drive?

It must be a floppy since drivers for a flash drive are not loaded at that point of the install. XP setup will look on A: , so you will need a USB floppy drive if the laptop does not have one.

It must be a floppy since drivers for a flash drive are not loaded at that point of the install. XP setup will look on A: , so you will need a USB floppy drive if the laptop does not have one.

He's not wrong.........Your gonna need a floppy drive :(

Vista won't have this issue as it "knows" about sata drives

Just to point out. Yep floppy drive is required. Press F6 when installing XP to install additional drivers.

I had to copy the contents of "Drvdisk" from the download to the root of a floppy a:\ to get Windows Server 2003 up and running.

HTH

I have a SONY USB FDD drive sitting here, just for this sort of 'chicken and egg' task You're not really very local though!

But if you get desperate, shout.

Steve

Ah, bugger it then!

Yes the driver was unzipped.

Oh well, not to worry it will be someone else's problem now as it was only being done as a favor anyway.

Silly me thought it might of been as easy as my dad's Dell laptop i did last year, that was a piece of cake.

Thanks everyone for your input.

I downloaded the SATA driver from Fujitsu's website last night, however when i rebooted (& F6) with the flash drive (with driver on) plugged in, it went past the 'can't find HDD' stage but still wouldn't let me install XP.

Yes, it must be a floppy, and not all floppy drives work.

I know this is an old thread but I had the same issue and I know a way to fix it without floppy.

Just send me a PM if anyone has or is still having this problem.

Or just put the info up in the thread

Its kinda long to be typing out at this time of night TBH.

I will edit soon and inclued a detailed explanation.

I only just got it to work myself, and am basking in some much earned self glorification. (in other words having a few beers)

The best way to deal with loading SATA drives in XP is to create a "slipstreamed" XP disc. There are a few websites which contain driver archives and all the windows updates that you can add to an XP installation.

I made a XP Home DVD with service pack 3 and all the updates after it, plus many different chipset, vga, wireless, LAN, audio drivers etc all added to the disc, so basically it finds all SATA drives, loads all the drivers for you (so no yellow marks in device manager) and lready puts the latest service pack on and the updates after it.