My HDD isn't found when formatting or installing fresh OS

Hey,

I want to get rid of the preinstalled vista + useless programs on my ACER laptop

So I planned to format it and install a fresh windows XP on it

Some problems occured when booting from my windows xp CD:

First, it didn't even showed the "Boot from CD" option,
I went in the (what i think is) BIOS and changed the boot order or something to the CD first

Now I boot from the cd,

This is the exact error I get (mind some translation mistakes):

I didn't see any OS install option in the BIOS

This is what happened when typing "format c:" in the command prompt:

thanks!

XP doesn't support AHCI without the use of drivers. So set the Serial ATA transfer mode to "IDE" or "Legacy/Emulation" in the system BIOS. Or use Vista and up for AHCI. XP can use AHCI, but needs drivers by pressing F6 before setting up.

Native SATA = AHCI

IDE = Legacy mode for DOS & up to XP, who do not know SATA or AHCI. AHCI is required to enable NCQ and hot-plug support.

There are two kinds of hard drive for PCs, IDE and SATA. Just think of IDE as old and SATA as new. The new OS, Vista, has drivers that support the new hard drive interface. The old OS, XP, does not have drivers for the new hard drive interface.

Your new computer has the new drive interface, SATA, and the old OS, XP, does not have drivers for it.

The proper way to handle this is not available to you. The proper way is at the beginning of the XP install, hit F6, and then later in the install when the software asks for it, insert a floppy disk with the drivers on it into you floppy drive. But your laptop doesn't have a floppy drive.

Other things that you can do are to go into your BIOS and set your hard drive interface to IDE. That is what I did with my Dell Precision 370. It is supposed to be a little slower than SATA, but it seems to work fine. If I reinstall XP I will set the BIOS back to SATA and load the SATA drivers, but then I have a floppy drive and you don't.

Another way to load the SATA drivers without a floppy drive is explained in

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=413

But if I were you I wouldn't do any of these things, I would do what I did when the Vista home premium on my wife's laptop crapped out, I would install Windows 7 RC 64-bit. The price is right, it's free, and It's still available as a free download from Microsoft.

Windows 7 is much faster than Vista, it is often described as what Vista should have been.

A factory load of Vista is going to be full of crapware, which will also slow down your laptop. A clean install of windows 7 will be much faster for that reason too.

Be sure to get anti-virus software. Kaspersky has a free Windows 7 evaluation download. I tried to load AVG free, but it wouldn't load.

for an laptop 32 bit is better I think.
I could be wrong.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Drivers. If you can't find hardware drivers for Windows 7 RC 64 bit, then you don't really have a choice.

My wife's laptop is a Gateway, and after loading Windows 7 RC 64 bit, the Wi-Fi didn't work, because there was no driver for it. I took it upstairs and connected it to the ethernet port of the router, and it auto connected to Microsoft, and auto installed the Wi-Fi driver. After a restart it had Wi-Fi.