ok, i just built a computer with a sata 120gb hdd and ive gone to install xp on it on through the start of the installation it says no hdd found " this may involve running a manufactured supplied diagnostic or settup program." i have also been told i need to format the hdd, how can i do this in dos?
Is the drive found by the BIOS of motherboard? I dont know what you have but if you hit the "delete" or maybe "F2" (depending on your board) at the startup screen to open your BIOS. Dont change anything you arent sure of, but find the hardware tab and check if it sees the hard drive. If it sees it you may just just have to change it to boot from CD/DVD disk first not hard drive and the windows disk should let you format if it is an install disk. Let me know if this helps at all. _edit_ maybe hook it up to a known good computer and go through disk manager to format it?