I have a MSI Neo2 Platinum (nForce 3) as motherboard, 2 IDE hard disk, 2 dvds and 2 sata hard disk.

I have had WinXP installed on one of my IDE hard disk (an old 60 go Maxtor) for at least 1,5 year... time to reinstall!

I'd like to reinstall on one of my sata drive (newest Maxtor DiamonMax 10, much faster drive!) and I simply CAN'T

I always suceed to detect my hardisk in winxp installation, do the first step (copy files) but after the first reboot I ALWAYS get the same error:

"windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem" blablba

I've done a lot of reading/searching and have tried several things

1-I've tried one of those DVD fully packaged with drivers, updates, softwares, etc...

2-I've tried to do my own CD of WinXP packaged with my sata drivers

3-I've tried an original CD of WinXP without any driver (my sata drives are detected)

4-I've tried to unplug all my IDE and sata drive except for the one I need

5-I've tried WinXP's repair console and bootcfg /repair

6-I've tried to manually edit my boot.ini

I'm tired of this... i spent so many hours trying to install my winxp... I hope you have some good advice for me before I go crazt

Could you check if you have a ide compatibility mode for sata in bios of the motherboard ?

how are you starting the install, booting from the cd on startup yes? (ie, not loading it from windows)

-booting from cd is the best way.

you may need your SATA driver onhand on a floppy disc (it should contain some inf files, and a TXTSETUP.OEM file) when setup is first loading (the blue screen part) press F6 when it shows for a few seconds, and load the driver from your floppy..

continue as normal..

Edited July 26, 200620 yr by bledd

OK, make sure you have the latest bios release and make sure your SATA is configured as enabled and/or is configured to be bootable (although it should automaticlly boot), in some cases such as my BIOS i have option setting for my PC

IDE only

SATA only

IDE + SATA

SATA + IDE

The two but simular settings that enable both channels also sets the primary and secondary boot, also their is in some BIOS that allow you to configure your bootable device.

I've updated my bios and I think it'll work... I'll try this week end

I'm gonna kill myself for not having updated my bios before