I've done lots of searching and reading in these forums about this and found some info online, but haven't found specific answers to my problem (so if there's info on this already, please point me in the right direction). I don't mean to repeat stuff here...
I'm trying to do a reformat and install of Windows XP Pro. I've done this many times on previous computers (boot from CD) , but never on my Sager. Apparently however my system isn't recognizing that I have a hard drive. When time to select the drive(s) to partition/install on - I get:
Setup did not find any hard drives installed on your computer.... blah, blah, blah... I've read that this can be a problem with SATA drives, and I've read that you can install the drivers with a floppy at setup, but I don't have a floppy drive (does anyone any longer?)
Also, I've read that I can change the system configuration at startup (F2 on my computer) - to affect the RAID/SATA settings. Here are my only options for RAID/ATA:
RAID/SATA Mode Select:
RAID Mode
ATA Mode
Disabled
I'm afraid to disable this (I have one SATA), and obviously RAID isn't correct.
So, does anybody have any advice for this so that my BIOS will recognize my hard drive?
Oh, I did download the ATA drivers from sagernotebook.com but I have no idea how to install it. It's a self-extracting EXE but it doesn't say where to extract it TO (or even if this can be done while Windows is running).
Here's my setup, if that helps:
Any help would be appreciated.
I'm trying to do a reformat and install of Windows XP Pro. I've done this many times on previous computers (boot from CD) , but never on my Sager. Apparently however my system isn't recognizing that I have a hard drive. When time to select the drive(s) to partition/install on - I get:
Setup did not find any hard drives installed on your computer.... blah, blah, blah... I've read that this can be a problem with SATA drives, and I've read that you can install the drivers with a floppy at setup, but I don't have a floppy drive (does anyone any longer?)
Also, I've read that I can change the system configuration at startup (F2 on my computer) - to affect the RAID/SATA settings. Here are my only options for RAID/ATA:
RAID/SATA Mode Select:
RAID Mode
ATA Mode
Disabled
I'm afraid to disable this (I have one SATA), and obviously RAID isn't correct.
So, does anybody have any advice for this so that my BIOS will recognize my hard drive?
Oh, I did download the ATA drivers from sagernotebook.com but I have no idea how to install it. It's a self-extracting EXE but it doesn't say where to extract it TO (or even if this can be done while Windows is running).
Here's my setup, if that helps:
Oh, last thing - the BIOS I'm runnning is 1.00.05S and the current BIOS on the Sager Website is 1.00.04. I really know nothing about BIOS, but does anybody know if changing/updating my BIOS would help this?Sager 9880-C Notebook
Display: 17" WSXGA+ LCD (Glossy 1680 X 1050)
Processor: 3.8GHZ P4 w/2MB L2 cache & EM64T(670)
Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra w/GDDR3
1395 RAM: 1024MB 533DDR2 (2 x512)
Primary Hard Drive: 60GB 7200RPM
Secondary Hard Drive: No
Bay 1 Media Drive: 8x DVD+- with DVD+R DL(Lightscribe Enabled )
Bay 2 Media Drive: 8X DVD/24X10X24 CDRW Combo Drive
Modem: 56K RJ11 Phone Modem
Network Card: 10/100/1000 NIC
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (+SP2 CD)
Battery: 12 Cell Smart Li-Ion Battery
Wireless Network: Internal 802.11g wireless + Bluetooth
Any help would be appreciated.
