My laptop says there is no hardrive installed

I am trying to reformat my laptop computer, but when I run the XP setup disc it says there is no hardrive installed on the computer... I had the crazy thought that when I started using my external hardrive a couple months ago somehow the computer changed things around and made it the main hardrive on the computer. On this whim I decided to plug the hardrive in and try the reformat again... When I did it recognized it as and "installed hardrive." I want to install xp on the real hardrive though... do you know how this might be done... is there a bootable program that can change the settings so that the computer recognizes the real hardrive? Oh yeah and I suppose I should mention that I made the problem worse by running a bootable "write zero" program on the hardrive so the computer has no operating system on it now.

In your bios there should be a hardrive auto detection menu. Hit enter to have it automatically detect hardrive in laptop as primary master. Leave external Hardrive disconnected at this time. Dont need windows to do this.

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I’ll keep using Linux until they pry it from my cold dead fingers.

I do not see a hardrive auto detection menu :-/ The bios is recognizing the hardrive though:

Main SATA: WDC WD1200BEVS-00LAT0-(S1)

and I don't know if this makes any difference, but the Laptop is a Gateway.

There is an F6 prompt when first installing XP.

Press F6 to add drivers.

You need to do this then load the SATA drivers for your computer.

Otherwise the XP Setup CD cannot see SATA drives.

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Are you using the Gateway Restore CD?

The SATA drivers should be on a driver CD or at Gateway's website.

Unfortunately I don't have the restore disc... but I did find an download all the necessary drivers at the Gateway website and burned them to a disc, but even so the computer says:

"Setup could not find a floppy drive on your machine to load OEM drivers from floppy disk."

You may run into many issues without the proper Restore CD.

What CD are you using?

If your laptop does not have a floppy try a USB device.

You need to load these drivers.

Ok... I you just answered my question, I just need to plug in an external hardrive to my computer with the files I downloaded from Gateway... I'm sure it will work :-D Thank you... I'll be back on if it ends up not working :-D

I do have an external floppy drive at the office so I'll do it all tomorrow.

Thanks again!!

Ok, so my computer is not recognizing the external floppy drive (USB)... I don't know what to do now.

Most computers over a couple of years old do not see the USB prior to Windows being installed.

Windows installs the USB drivers.

The Gateway CD probably had the drivers included.

You might try buying a new CD from Gateway:

http://support.gateway.com/support/ask_gateway.asp

You can always try UBUNTU:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

I just finished installing Ubuntu on my system... it works great... I probably won't go back to Windows now since Ubuntu seems to be running all of my programs just fine. Thanks for the help.