CANNOT FORMAT HARD DISK...PLZ HELP

[ynazir]

I HAVE A SONY VAIO AR11M LAPTOP WITH 160GB HARD DISK WHICH IS PRE PARTITIONED BY SONY AT 80GB EACH. THE PROBLEM IM FACING IS THAT I WANT TO INSTALL A CLEAN VERSION OF WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL WITHOUT RECOVERING THE SYSTEM SO THAT I DONT GET THE PRE INSTALLED SOFTWARES SONY HAS IN SYSTEM RECOVERY BECAUSE THAT REALLY SLOWS DOWN THE SYSTEM. I HAVE TRIED INSTALLING A LOT OF TIMES BUT ALWAYS WHEN THE INSTALLER GETS TO THE POINT WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO SELECT THE PARTITION TO INSTALL THE OS, IT JUST SIMPLY SAYS THERE ARE NO HARD DISKS INSTALLED IN THE SYSTEM. I HAVE TRIED FORMATTING IT BUT I CANT BECAUSE IT SAYS THAT HARD DISK IS IN USE ALTHOUGH ITS NOT. SOMEHOW WHAT I THINK IS THAT SONY HAS LOCKED THE HARD DISKS FROM BEING FORMATTED OR SOMETHING CUZ I CANT SEE THE HARD DISKS IN THE BIOS SETTINGS AS WELL. LIKE IT SHOWS A 160GB HARD DISK INSTALLED BUT I CANT ALTER IT OR ANYTHING. IM NOT VERY FAMILIAR WITH THE CORRECT TERMS AND EVERYTHING SO PLEASE IGNORE THE NOOBNESS. THANKS A LOT

[Blencogo]

Hi ynazir and welcome.

The problem is that you have a SATA hard drive. You need to buy or borrow a floppy disc drive.

XP does not support SATA drives so you will need to save the SATA drivers to a 1.44MB Floppy drive connected by USB. When you get to the 'Welcome to Setup' screen during installation press F6 to load the SATA driver from the floppy disc so Windows can recognise your hard disc and install normally.

Google for 'XP Install SATA'

[ynazir]

THANKS FOR THE HELP....I JUST WANTED TO ASK IS IT POSSIBLE TO COPY THE DRIVERS ONTO A USB FLASH DRIVE AND THEN COPY EM? OR DOES IT HAS TO B A FLOPPY DRIVE??...THANKS AGAIN

[Blencogo]

Hi ynazir.

Unfortunately, you will have to get a floppy drive. XP will not recognise USB flash drives like Vista does and the floppy drive is the only way.

Well almost the only way. There is a way of slipstreaming your drivers into the XP Install. It's a bit complicated but not too bad and doesn't need a floppy drive.

Have a read of the guides that come with this excellent bit of free software called n-Lite: -

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

[ynazir]

thanks again blencogo....one last thing i wanted to ask...sorry if im being irritating but i seriously have no clue about these things....where do i get the sata drivers for the hard disk....i mean how would i know which drivers i have to get that would work with the hardware installed in my laptop. Thanks

[Blencogo]

Hi ynazir,

It's not a problem - you ask anything you like!!!

If you look in the directory C:\Drivers\SATA on your hard drive you will find the SATA drivers - about six or seven files starting with "Si...." (for Silicon Image).

You will also need to copy this whole directory C:\Drivers and add it to your new XP install as it contains the drivers for all your hardware.

[ynazir]

ok another problem....i got the sata drivers from the driver directory which comes with the sony recovery utility but....now when i start the windows setup and i load the sata drivers, i still get the same msg that there are no hard disks installed on the system, please make sure the connection is ok and stuff....though if there were no hard disks how the hell do i have this os installed...i dun get it...is the hard disk locked or sumthing???...please help

[ynazir]

help plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sum1

[Blencogo]

I don't know your model well. Anyone out there with an AR11M?

I wonder if you have two hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration?

Do you have a folder C:\drivers\RAID on your Vaio? If so try adding the RAID drivers to the floppy disc as well as the SATA drivers.

[Dekesh]

i have an AR11M and can confirm it only has one hard drive. i can also confirm that the SATA drivers are found in the directory C:\Drivers\Sata.

I havent tried this myself but maybe you are copying the SATA folder to your floppy. Instead maybe you can copy the contents of the SATA folder to the root of the floppy disk, it may work.

One other thing, maybe set up isn't detecting your floppy drive and hence cant access the drivers