Ancient Computer Problems

Nordian

Honorable
Nov 29, 2013
10
0
10,520
Ok. So, many a year ago I had a HP Pavilion computer ( a HP Pavilion a735w desktop PC, to be specific) and eventually, as most computers handled by young children do, it died. At the time, I figured "Oh well" and stuck it in storage. Then, fast forward a decade, I decided to take it out and see if I couldn't renovate it into a Server computer. So, I dragged it out of the attic and plugged it in a powered it on. The BIOS booted and then I got an error about " Hard Disk Failure, Please Insert System Disk". This was in no way alarming, as I was dealing with a very old Hard Drive. so I took out the old IDE Drive and put in a much newer SATA Drive. Now when it booted, I got the same error message, so I followed its instructions and put a copy of Windows XP Professional into the DVD Slot. The computer seemed satisfied, and up came Windows Setup. It started to load all these drivers and then asked if I wanted to install Windows XP. I said "Yes" and hit ENTER. I then agreed to the terms and conditions. Then, when I thought it would install, a list asking for a Hard Drive showed up. It looked like this:
install_thumb1605.jpg


Except, where the image shows a nice little partition, mine showed four consecutive messages that read
"<There is no disk in this drive.> Unknown Disk", Despite the fact there was a 1TB Drive sitting inside the computer.

So then I looked online and saw that most people resolved this problem by switching a BIOS Setting from AHCI to ATA. I thought that this was obviously my problem. So I turned on the computer again and switched into the BIOS. I looked around an could not find this setting. Turns out, the BIOS is so out of date, I don't even think that it has the AHCI to ATA setting.

So at this point, I don't know whether to buy a SATA to IDE adaptor, or if I should just buy an IDE Drive. Any Help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Nordian
 

Niko_boy

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
536
0
11,160


To create partition there need to be mentioning of UnPartitioned space first i.e. HDD is detected by setup but it hasnt been partitioned. But here it doesnt show any UnPartitioned space so means it isnt detected already..