hello, i just got myself a segate baracuda HDD (PATA), plugged it as primary master, set the jumper accordingly, restarted the computer, got into BIOS, and the primary master is shown as the segate baracuda HDD just as it should. The secondary master and slave are my two DVD burner drives and these are shown in BIOS as well. Next, i attempted installing windows XP on the new HDD, on the 'select partition to install screen', it says 'setup could not access this drive'. Next, i tried 'diskpart' from the recovery console, says 'could not access'. Next, i tried my old windows 98 CD, booted to DOS, and tried A:\>FDISK. Says: WARNING: COULD NOT ACCESS DISK 1. Tried setting the new HDD as a secondary slave, the secondary master being one of the DVD writers (unplugged the second DVD writer), set the jumpers accordingly. Again, the HDD is shown as the secondary slave in BIOS as it should, and again, windows could not be installed. Tried all the available modes in BIOS (LBA, CHS, Large, Auto), but the exact same thing happens, no matter what i do. Is the new HDD dead? I even tried a new data cable, same results. :-(
Windows XP intall disk doesn't came with SATA driver... Ethear you search in your BIOS setting for something like virtual ATA, or you create with nLite a custom distribution with those drivers.
