Hard Disk Not Detected Vista

I have run into a strange problem that I need some help. I am running vista ultimate on a ibm t43p laptop. All of my current usb items including keyboard, camera, printer and others work fine.When I try to install a new usb device plug and play is not recognizing properly.

The found new hardware wizard comes up and tries to install the driver. When searching it cannot find the driver and does not install properly. I have tried the devices on other computers and they do work.Anyone have any ideas why these items won't install?

The specific item now is a canon pixma pro9000 printer. The driver is on the computer but plug and play will not install the device.Thanks, Jim. This is a real big problem I have any USB devices that I unplug and re-plug offten and in a fresh install of Vista all the drivers load on the first try but after a few weeks I will start to notice that when I plug in a device Vista with show me the found new hardware dialog with the devices name at the top. When I click seach for drivers it will search windows update and find nothing then I can point it to the exact location of the INF and driver files (I've even tried windowssystem32 and many other combinations) Vista will never find some of the drivers.I've also tried deleting the INFCACHE.1 file in windowsinf and that would seems to help now and then but I refuse to reload Vista again.Does anyone know how to fix this annoying and HUGE bug!? Same stuff for me, I use Vista Ultimate since 1 of April without any problem (the real goal was when my Hauppauge Nexus-s started to work under Vista). The troubles two days ago when I tryed to reinstall a HP Photosmart C3180.No way with the usual procedure, the wizard hangs every time at the point 'connect the usb cable now'. I solved with manual installation of the drivers for each device found (more than 1 hour to set up a printer!).

Now every time that I plug - unplug - replug a usb device I have to reinstall the drivers pointing to c:windowssystem32.Any Ideas?Thanks. Alexander Hartmaier wrote:click on manual specify location and point it to c:windowssystem32 and check the 'search subfolders' checkbox.Seems to be a Vista bug.Alexander,Signed in just to thank you for the info. Not sure why this one was so hard for me to find.doh. This also solved another problem where my DVD drive was not being recognized as a labeled drive.

By using this process, I was able to 'update' the driver and now my DVD drive appears in my computer like it should.Thanks again,Jon. I agree with you TheBrain. I'm having the same problem.

My Toshiba Satellite U205-S5057 Notebook (with Windows Vista) doesn't recognize most of USB Memory devices. When I try to plug an USB memory device, a dialog box appears warning me about a missing driver. As you can see, Vista is asking me for the driver too. 'till now I have not figured out how to solve this problem. Have you got some help?? I will appreciate some help from you. Does anyone nows what is going wrong with my computer? Perhaps Windows Vista is the problem???

Thanks.Daniel Maximus. I have a work around, which works fr me.I tried connecting all my devices.like.PDA, USB hard disc, Flash Memdrive, PSP before booting the computer. After booting with these devices, I could see these devices DISABLED under DEVICE MANAGER.Using Device Manager, I manually enabled each USB device. Which gives a msg bubble 'installing device driver SW' followed by option window 'Found New Hardware'.Under 'Found New Hardware' window, I selected 'Ask Me again later'. Immedietly, I could see my memory devices in 'MY COMPUTER' functioning fine.But if u disable / remove USB devices and try to connect while ur system is running.these devices are not getting recognized.

Again, you need to connect these devices and reboot the system and follow the above steps.Pls let me know if this works? Spent 8.5 straight hours on the phone with MS & HP tech support trying to resolve this issue yesterday (went to level 4 technician). Could not connect a brand new USB printer (to accept the USB drivers) to my new laptop.

I mentioned this thread.to no avail. MS basic response was that this was an HP issue. Not getting any clear answers, I bought another new laptop and moved my files from the problem laptop (only a month old) to the 'new' laptop. After getting this 2nd new laptop, Vista is operating much differently than the first (both HPs bTW). However, only the 2nd day, and I am begining to have issues again.I am uninstalling my Bluetooth to c if this will work.but much like a previous poster, wondering if anyone else sees a slow degredation of the OS when it comes to drivers.Looking back, I should have known there was an issue with the first laptop, when It wouldn't even work with the Easy Transfer USB cable.

My first laptop was built before Vistas official launch, and was held for sale until the launch.

We’ve seen this question posted in our forum many times, so thought we should write an article on this problem. When users try to, they encounter the problem of not being able to find any hard disk drives installed as if they weren’t connected. The hard drive is detected with no problem in the BIOS and also on start up POST, able to boot up but the hard drive is just not being detected in Windows setup. Here is the exact error message.Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.This problem is quite a common one and is simply due to the fact that when Windows XP was created, the SATA chipset itself and SATA hard drives weren’t available to the masses, so support for it wasn’t included in the XP setup process.

As most computers within the last decade or so have some form of SATA controller, if you try to install Windows onto a SATA drive, XP won’t recognize it because the drivers aren’t present on the installation disc, so they need to be loaded manually for the drive to be picked up.Thankfully there are a few ways to get around this problem and enable Windows XP to be installed onto a SATA hard drive so you can enjoy the extra performance and other functions like hotplug/AHCI etc. Setting the BIOS CorrectlyThe first and mos obvious method is to change the SATA Mode to IDE in the system BIOS. Most BIOS’s for several years have included a fallback mode to enable a SATA drive to behave like an IDE drive, and therefore makes it visible to XP during setup.

Detected

The problem with this setting is it comes under several different names and can be found in different sections within the BIOS. It depends entirely on the computer or motherboard’s make, model and manufacturer to know which setting you have and where it is.

If you have a manual, it’s certainly worth reading.The most obvious thing to look for is a setting which can change the SATA controller to IDE or PATA mode, with options such as AHCI - IDE or SATA/RAID - IDE etc. Basically any option you come across to reduce the SATA/RAID mode to IDE/PATA should be the correct one. Don’t confuse this option with a similar one which will disable the SATA controller completely. In fact, your proposal of modifying the BIOS SATA setting worked well on My Compaq nc6400.That is after formatting my windows partition (Given that i have two OS on my laptop) i had the above mentioned problem (setup did not find hard disk. Though i could still boot to Linux without problem.)each time i tried to install the Os. So after reading your instruction i just started the machine and went into the BIOS and Disabled SATA from the device configure menu.Immediately i did this,the set up could now find the hard disk so i proceeded with the installation.

Thanks very much. Had the same problem, got infected with a few virus’sNamely downloader.nsis.agent & trojan.win32.cosmuIt disabled all anti-virus products, they wouldn’t runAt start-up, it kept re-bootingTried to run in safe mode, last known configuration etc etc. And none workedTried installing windows xp, then using the repair tool, but it couldn’t find the hard driveDid what you said, changed the bios – disabled sataRebooted with the xp installation disk and hey presto, was able to repair the laptop, keep all my files (thank god)When it finished repairing, the machine also ran a chkdsk, loads of problems automatically fixedRunning spybot now to remove the trojans, the future is brightLooks like my laptop is alive again, thank you sooo much for the advice, I’ve spent days trying to fix this. Ran kaspersky’s boot cd 2010 and even it couldn’t get the machine going.Thanks again. After many attempts I finally got this to work. I was unable to change from SATA mode to IDE, so I followed the second solution.I have 2 tips:In order to get the F6 key to respond I had to press F6 much earlier than indicated.

I pressed F6 repeatedly when the PC was first switched on until the line “Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver” appeared.Secondly I found that if I did this with a USB keyboard when I got to the screen that says“Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system, or you have chosen to manually specify an adapter. Currently, Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices(s)”the keyboard didn’t work whichever key I pressed. My solution – use a PS/2 connected keyboard.Success! After fiddling with my friends computer for 6HRS, this post hit on my problem most succintly! I was trying, on an HP dv6000, to reinstall Windows XP from Windows 7.

Hard Disk Not Detected

(My co-worker didn’t like 7!) I was doing it without any recovery discs.I formatted and partioned MANY times, but the darn computer wouldn’t recognized the hard drive. I visited Microsofts’ website all day, and none of their advice was as lucid and simple as yours. Thanks again!PS I am regarded as ‘tech savvy’ by my friends so you saved the day and my tech cred! Thank you very much for this information. I encountered this issue on my IBM Thinkpad R60 after I had installed a copy of Vista Home and wanted to step back to XP Pro. This was an instant fix but for clarification on my system you need to choose to put the (SATA) Controller into Compatibility Mode as there is no (IDE) mode option in the BIOS. I would strongly suggest everyone try this setting solution first.

You can certainly use nLite or vLite to create an ISO disc but that takes 30min just to get going and this was done in less than 5. You saved my ass.

I have an acer Aspire 6920G laptop and I was on vista. I had problems with the internet connection. I couldnt find any wireless internet signal.

I also couldnt open any usb or burn disk’s. So I poped it my windows xp cd and when it said. Press “r” to begin installing Windows xp.

Hard Disk Not Detected Vista

Nothing happened. I pressed R and still nothing. So I took my cd out and restared my laptop. It would boot to windows Vista. I was so scared because he laptop is not even mine ( well is my brothers). Thnx to this now I can install Windows again!

Im installing it right now. Hey, Thanks for your help. I always wondered what a third-party raid driver was. Anyway, I made the changes in BIOS and am installing XP on my son’s laptop.

Here’s the scenario: I safe booted Vista and lo and behold it’s giving me a DOS window. (I was already suspicious) Like an idiot, I formatted C. Got the above message, can’t find the HDD.

Well damage done. I got KillDisk and really crapped it out.

Same problem until I found your article. A year ago, my step-son was going to throw this laptop away.

(the one I’m on now kids are dumb, everything’s disposable) It’s a Dell and had XP on it. I formatted with XP and got drivers through my driveragent subscription and got a brand new laptop. My son’s is a presario. Good God!, I’ve wiped and re-installed lots of drives and never had this headache before.

Thanks again. I tried a lot of queries from Google – tried nLITE as many of you might have after getting this error. Saw that this might be a BIOS problem after reading this thread. Though I don’t have the same options as stated above, I simply went into my BIOS – where ever it said “BIOS – balh blah blah blah” + enabled – I simply disabled it. One only place where I could do it. Didn’t even know what it meant to do it, but it did work.

Quitar programas menu inicio windows vista. Oct 05, 2011  Como Quitar o Agregar Programas Del Inicio de Windows Xp, Vista y 7 (HD). Desactivar aplicaciones que se inician con Windows (sin programas). Quitar programas del inicio de Windows 7.

Now XP can install. Simply disable/or enable – whatever your computer is set to in SATA – just do the opposite. Thanks for ths great tip. I have a DELL Inspiron 1525 and I was trying to get rid of Vista on the laptop and install XP.I followed the information above posted by Lightninghawk which involved going into the BIOS and changing the SATA settings:– Press F2 on startup to enter BIOS– arrow down to Onboard Devices and open– arrow down to SATA operation– change from AHCI to ATA– press Enter to Save and then Esc to Exit, Saving changes– I then rebooted with the Windows XP in the drive and it went through the install procedures no problemThis was for a DELL inspiron 1525 and I did not require any SATA drivers.Slan,Tom. Unbelievable, I went through and updated drivers for everything on my computer, I downloaded new disks, completely wiped harddrive set everything to 0s then installed totally new label and linux OS then tried XP and vista, but neither would boot.

Hard Disk Not Detected Vista Free

So finally called Dell and of course stayed on the phone with them until they decided it was just that my hard drive was completely broken and sent me a new hard drive. Too bad they didn’t know this would have saved them the money of shipping out new parts. Just want to share my case with everyone.

I have dell 8400. Tried to install xp as i was not able to start window. I first received the error,“ftdisk.sys is corrupted”. Well, cleaned the CD fixed this.Once it loaded all files i received the error,“did not find any hard disk drives” wish lead me to this site. F2 BIO setting to boot from CD-ROM to be first2. Changed SATA specification from AHCI(manf. Default) to ATA — will change back after successful installationThis did it.

Hard Disk Drive Not Detected

I’m now installing new XP. Thanks a lot for your help! I am currently installing XP on a Dell Insprion 1525.Here is some info for youIn BIOS Setup (hit F12 at startup), change SATA mode from AHCI to ATA and the WINDOWS XP Pro Installation CD will detect the SATA drive no problem (I have the Dell XP flavor of XP startup CD).You may also have to change the Boot order of the laptop in BIOS so that the CD/DVD drive is top of the Boot order (accessible under boot sequence) to get the laptop to show the “Press any Key to Boot from CD” option. By default the HDD is top of the order so the laptop will tend to boot straight to Vista otherwise.