XP Install Disk Unable To Find Mass Storage Device?

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XP Install Disk Unable To Find Mass Storage Device?

by Kermit
(El Paso, Texas U.S.A.)

Monte,

Here is a new one for me; I have been trying to repair a computer.

Installed new mother board etc. have decided to use the XP Install disk to repair windows as it would not boot after shrinking a single partition 500gig.

Maxtor hard drive to 317gigs; SATA Drive.

The bios shows the disk and when I had it connected as an external usb drive to attemp to recover the data and load on the internal disk I was able to see the partition and access much of the data in the active partiton of the drive.

There were some of the owners files that I was unable to access the permissions in security, when connected as a USB drive.

To get back to the present state I am receiving the following message from the install boot disk:

Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devives installed in your system, or you have chosen to manualu specify an adaptor, currently setuup will load support for the following mass storage devics(s)

* To specify additional SCSI adaptors, CD-ROM devices, or speical disk controllers for use with Windows including thoses for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufactuter press S.

Note: When pressed I read the following:

Please insert the sisk labbled manufacture-supplied hardware support disk into Drive A.
(Don't have one of these)

* If you do not have any device support disks from a mass storage device manufacturer or do mot want ot sppecify any additional mass storage devices for use with Windows press ENTER.

When I press enter it starts to load files then stops very frustrating.

What has happened in your view and what will be needed to get the OS disk to start up so I can get into repair section of the disk to make it boot again. I don't know how the files became currupted there was a total of 12 gigs of files on the disk and only shrank it to 317 gigs.

This should not have caused the system to fail to start in the first place. Did a Disk Check on the C-Drive when external and it reported no currupted files or clusters.

XP Home Eddition as you know loads in under 5 gigs., 32 bit.

I made an inage, before I shrank the C-Drive and install the Image on the new partition. This was some months ago and installed a different hard dirve; loaded Vist on it to get the computer running and now Vista has failed on the newer drive.

Many Thanks,

Kermit

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XP Install Disk Unable To Find Mass Storage Device?

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Jan 23, 2011
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XP will not see a SATA drive or controller
by: Support

Hello Kermit,

What version of XP do you have? What is the installed service pack? If it is two or less then the cd does not have the SATA drivers. Remember XP is over ten years old and the technology has moved forward, SATA, USB3, etc.

So how to resolve your problem?

Do you have a cd for the motherboard? If so look on the cd for a folder for the SATA controller drivers that has three or four files in it one will be labled: TXTSETUP.OEM

If you don't have a floppy drive in the computer you can use a USB drive instead.

On the floppy/usb create a folder by the name of the SATA then copy the files from the cd to the folder on floppy/usb pen drive.

When you start the computer from the XP install disk as soon as you see the splash screen press F6 (you will see the notice at the bottom of the screen to press F6 for addtional drivers).

When you get to the screen where is says press 'S' to load additional drivers press the S key, now the problem comes in when you are using a USB pen drive, the hardware may say it is the C: drive because your boot drive isn't reconized as a the C: drive you will have to put the path to the files in manually, it would look like this:

C:\sata\TXTSETUP.OEM

This should get the install disk to see the SATA controller and the drives.

To save yourself a lot of hassel see if you can find an XP install disk with SP 3 on it.

The last thing I will say is that if Vista failed after a short time then shrinking the partition instead of deleting the old partitions and creating new ones doesn't seem to work to well. (I think I said that before, no?)

Hope this helps ...

Jan 23, 2011
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Reply!
by: Anonymous

Monte thank you, my XpHome edition is 2 years old and is SP3 The new motherboard is a MSI G31TM-p21with Intel Pent.Dual core 775 socket,4 gigs 800 DDR2 memory. The orignal Sony and Lite-On DVD Burnners both PATA were reconised by the Bios but would not boot the system with new mother board. So I installed a new Lite-On SATA. Which would not boot the system with a new unformated 320gig SATA hard drive and the older Maxtor SATA drives installed. It was only after I disconected the Masxtor hard drive would the DVD even boot.

Vista is on a PATA 160gig hard drive, and not on the drive that XP is on.

I installed w-7 home prem on a new 320gig just to get something going and as it was used to install W-7 on that Hp Pavillian Lap top the has honerable mention in an earlyer post on Q&A. I did not autnenticate it. I did install so I thought all the drivers for the drives on the W-7 hard drive.

As part of the up grade I installed one of those very nice Ultra Floppy Drive/all-in-one card readers. So will get the chance to test it when I find my floppy disks some where in the closet???

Thank you again.

Kermit

Jan 24, 2011
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Not going to belive this!!
by: Anonymous

Monte, no drivers for sata or IDE controllers on the drivers utilty disk from msi guess I am going to have to go to your favered website to find them
.

Ben through every file and folder including the drivers folders.

Kermit

Jan 24, 2011
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Loaded Drivers Forgot 1 Important Item.
by: kermit

I thought i had typed this in, install disk cannot find the hard drive underneath the part of the previouise outline there is indicating that it cannot find the mass storage device and the instalkl disk has the correct drivers.

So this is the ropot problem
is the hard drive itself the problem?

The bios reconises it when I checked it in the bios all require setting for it to run are set to auto.
WillI need to go to Maxtor's website to get new drivers for the hardrive?

Many thanks again

kermit

Jan 24, 2011
Rating

Hard drive not detected
by: Support

Hello Kermit,

Maxtor will not have any drivers for the drive.

The proplem may be:

The hard drive itself
The SATA Cable
The SATA controler
The Motherboad
The CD/DVD Drive

But which one?

I would start with disconnecting any other drive in the computer execpt the Maxtor, then with a bootable USB drive start the computer, do you see the drive when booted from an external device?

If you can see it then connect the CD/DVD drive, boot it from a bootable cd other than the XP install disk.

Can you see the drive?

(How many CD/DVD drives in the computer? If one do you have another one you can try?)

If you can try the XP install disk.

If you can't see the drive with the XP install disk then the install disk is at fault.

Do you have any other XP install disks?

What you are trying to do is explained in this blog post: http://www.fix-it-blog.com/?p=1075

You need to start the computer with the XP install disk and select 'R' to repair the boot sector and MBR (the instructions are at the bottom of the article) to get it to start again, correct?

Two things I can think of:

One thing I can think of that would be causing you problems is that the XP install disk does not have the SATA drivers for the SATA controler.

The other thing is the CD/DVD may be failing (I have two older CD/DVD burners in my main computer, sometimes the Memorex will not see a cd, this may or may not be the case in your comptuer).

By now all current SATA controllers should be standardize to the same specifications and one driver should see all manufacture's chip sets for the SATA controller embedded on the motherboard.

Hope this helps ...

Jan 24, 2011
Rating

Reply.
by: Kermit

Monte, When I first shrank the Maxtor 500gig, sin gle partition I used the orignal mother board. A AsRock; processor P4, memeory 2 gigs 400DDR and the 2 Pata DVD Burnners installed. The drive would not boot. I was not able to get the xpSP3 install disk to boot. I purchased the PATA Hard Drive and took it and a new cable to a friend who is a disabled VET. That was trained by the V.A. as, a computer tech. Even he was not able to get the disk to boot. He installed Vista on the PATA hard drive. The AsRock mother board has 2 PATA and 2 Sata ports. With no problem.

I really don't know what happened to the drive but it seems to be the problem. the date code is 2004 year of namufacture.

As mentioned before as an external I am able to access certain files. Except I am able to copy the owners account desk top or documents and I don't have the admint pass word though with one of my boot disks I was able to blank the administrator account password. Was able to get the COA Key as will.

It is only when the Maxtor hard drive with the active partition is connected will the system not boot with From the DVD burnner the new sata one.

I even tried to boot the system with my XP PRO. Recovery disk. That I downloaded from Microsoft for 32 bit systems. Same results even the repair side cannot find the mass storage device.

I did a full disk check on the XP hard drive when set up as an external USB. No dammaged files or clusters I reviewed the report I have the ULTRA device that allow you to make any 2.5; 3.5 Hard drive an external USB Without an enclosure. Also Partitioned part of the free space to store the data I copies and can access the new partition ok.

Interesting thing is that the new mother board reconised the PATA Hard Drive, with Vista Operating System. I learned that the failure was not with the system but the key code was incorrect that my friend installed. Using a Dell Disk. I guess. Wants me to go online to purchase a new key code.

Both windows Vista and the newly installed W-7 on a new SATA Hard Drive boot ok; but will not do so on the new mother board, when the Maxtor Hard drive is behind them in the boot order.It is locking up the System.

Thanks for your thoughts;

Kermit

Jan 24, 2011
Rating

Hard drive, IDE or SATA?
by: Support

Hello Kermit,

In 2004 there were not any SATA drives, the first SATA drive came out in 2007.

So is it a SATA or IDE?

If it is an IDE drive to boot it has to be the MASTER drive. (If it is on a IDE cable by it self then CS will work, as long as the cable is plugged in to the Master or # 1 IDE interface connector on the motherboard).

If it is a SATA then it has to be set in the BIOS as a bootable drive.

Normally you would set them this way:
Floppy driv
CD/DVD
Hard drive

(You could have the first CD/DVD then the second CD/DVD as the first two devices that boot that way it wouldn't matter which drive you put a boot CD/DVE in).

You may want to get the data off of the drive, take it to another computer and wipe the partitions and start all over.

As for the product key for Windows you can not put the wrong key in when you install the OS, if you put the wrong key in it should fail and tell you that the key is wrong (miss typed a few in my time).

From what you have discribed the BIOS sees the drive, Vista can see the drive, so it is not the drive that has the problem. Check the settings for the boot devices and see where it is located.

Hope this helps ...

Jan 24, 2011
Rating

Additional Information
by: Kermit

Monte,
Reviewed your comments again.

Neither of the old PATA DVD Burnner will Boot The system when connected master an slave or in cable slect with the Maxtor Hardrive that has win XPHome on it. The new SATA DVD Burnner is the only one that will boot. I have tried to use the orignal CD-Roms to install XP on 3 other older computers But the new notherboards would not allow a boot and installed new PATA or SATA DVD Burnners in all to get them to bootfor installingXPfrom my disk usinf the orignial COA's.

I did dowload the drivers and installed them on a floppy disk per your instructions. pressed F6 and recieved the same information as before installed the drivers and my XP SP3 install disk indicated that it has the same drivers and gave me the option of using them or the SATA Controler drivers on the floppy disk. I tried both. It called for additional drivers which I also coppied to the floppy disk. Still would not work-BSD.

I typed in the title of this orignal post into my search bar and came up with some interesting information that many newer motherboards have a RAID configuration in the bios and that in order to get xp install disk to boot you have to set the bios raid to IDE, and do the same thing you suggested as far as the floppy disk and drivers. I checked the bios an it's raid can only be IDE
so that was no help. One can only use SP3 install disk for this from what I read as the SATA controllers are only on SP3 install disk.

Thank you for you assistance but it looks like the problem lies with in the Maxtor hard drive

This is my god dauthers computer and she had very little data on the drives so I think I will delete the C-Drive partiton and see if I can do a clean install as I was able to access the key code when in external using my Spotmau disk. Will let you know what happens.

Kermit.

Jan 25, 2011
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Reply.
by: Kermit

Monte, Just turned the computer on without install disk upon boot I get this message:

Nonsystem disk or disk error.

Decided to give our brains a rest for a while.

Well, I may have misread the date code on the Maxtor hared drive that XP is mounterd on.

Here is something interesting Maxtor and Seagate are now one company. The hard drive is a DimondMax 22; went to the Seagate website to lean more about the Hard drive, The site list in SATA: Dimondmax line 2 not 3 Maxtor hard drives Dimondmak, & Dimondmax 23 no 22 series showing.
Was a page satfaction quetioner so expressed my thoughts as to why the drive is not listed, left my email address.

Date code is 08414 guess that would make it 2008 4 month 14th. day based on asain and european way of writing dates.

Funny thing is that it was installed on a p4 motherboard that has 1.5 data transfere rate as apposeed to the 3.0 of mordern SATA hard drives.and no jumper on the back.

Going external to wiple out the OS partition anbd will see if I casn install.
Much thanks,
Kermit.

Jan 25, 2011
Rating

Final Note.
by: Kermit

Think this is the final note.

Deleted the OS Partition, keep the partition that I created to store the recovered data.

Still would not boot from install disk reconected the hard drive that has W-7 install; installed Acronis Freeware Disk monitor. learned the following every thing is good but the disk restart is critical. and the disk is at 50% far below the safe limit of 70%. The bios has S.M.A.R.T. Could it be that the motheboard was not allowing the hard drive to boot as the built in smart setting which were ser to auto were below the safe threshold? The system would only reconise the hard drive when it was not the boot disk. When deleted the OS Partition and reconected the W-7 SATA Hard Drive the system b ooted . Don't figure. Ain't playing with it any more.

Thanks for your assistance and help this was a big brain twister.

Kermit.

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XP Install Disk Unable To Find Mass Storage Device?

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XP Install Disk Unable To Find Mass Storage Device?