[Samantha0101]

Hi,

Two days ago my computer came up saying that a system file had been corrupted but then went on to say it was successfully recovered -- obviously it wasn't.
It then would not boot so I put in the Windows XP disk & tried to run Repair (recovery console) and got this message: "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"
How would I go about fixing this, in simple terms?
I've obviously tried Google-ing, seems quite complicated to me.
My dad is coming down tomorrow (I've just moved to uni) so I can ask him to bring anything I need to try and fix this.
A friend told me to get him to bring his entire system and use my hard drive as a slave to retrieve my documents - would this work? And once I'd got my documents what would I do next?
I've also read elsewhere that I should try the F6 thing when I put the XP disk in, something about SATA drivers - would this work and what would I need on disk to do that?

Help appreciated.

[Samantha0101]

--No edit option on OP?--

Also, I've read that I need to check the hard drive shows up in bios and if not it's dead, right?
I'm at the university library currently so I'll check that when I get back.

[Hybr!d]

Master / Slaving setup wrong will not impair a PC booting.

Master / Slaving is only for IDE drives.

One reason XP setup cannot find a hard drive is because you may have a SATA drive as opposed to IDE, XP setup cannot see SATA drives without installing drivers first, via F6.

Yes, making sure your drive shows in your BIOS would be the first step in fixing this.

[philthomas]

Also ... in order to use the F6 option during reinstallation, you will require a floppy disk with the SATA drivers. You will find these on your motherboard disk.

[philthomas]

Well ..... does the drive show in bios ??

[Samantha0101]

Dad came round yesterday and he got it working a bit more, when i checked the other night the hard drive wasn't showing in Bios (only as [Hard Drive]), it now shows but loading via Safe Mode the Windows screen comes up and then goes onto a blank, black screen.
I think my dad tried different RAM but that didn't work. I now have some floppys with whatever on.

Couldn't M&S because is SATA.