Upon installing XP on new drive: UNKNOWN DISK error.

BKSinAZ · 05-01-2008, 08:02 PM

Upon attempting to install a fresh copy of windows xp on to a brand new SATA drive, I get to the screen that shows the drives/partitions that I can choose to install XP on to.

This window shows (4) UNKNOWN DISKS with small writing below "there is no disk in this drive.)

None of these four unknown disk can be selected!!

I tried 2 brand new hard drives. Both SATA.

The bios can see the drive.

I tried with and without the harddrive jumper.

I tried to boot off of the western digital cd and running the tools first before attempting to install xp. Same problem. Actually that hard drive shows a missing ntldr (or something) at times when attempting to boot off the XP cd. Replaced with another new drive.

When searching google for this problem, I find that many people have it, but no one seems to be able to fix it.

Rob 1 · 05-01-2008, 10:13 PM

You want to have your bios set so that the SATA drives emulate IDE drives.

If you can't find it in your bios, try googling for your motherboard manual.

05-01-2008, 08:02 PM	#1 (permalink)
BKSinAZ Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 104 OS: XP Pro	Upon installing XP on new drive: UNKNOWN DISK error. Upon attempting to install a fresh copy of windows xp on to a brand new SATA drive, I get to the screen that shows the drives/partitions that I can choose to install XP on to. This window shows (4) UNKNOWN DISKS with small writing below "there is no disk in this drive.) None of these four unknown disk can be selected!! I tried 2 brand new hard drives. Both SATA. The bios can see the drive. I tried with and without the harddrive jumper. I tried to boot off of the western digital cd and running the tools first before attempting to install xp. Same problem. Actually that hard drive shows a missing ntldr (or something) at times when attempting to boot off the XP cd. Replaced with another new drive. When searching google for this problem, I find that many people have it, but no one seems to be able to fix it.

05-01-2008, 10:13 PM	#2 (permalink)
Rob 1 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 326 OS: XP Pro	Re: Upon installing XP on new drive: UNKNOWN DISK error. You want to have your bios set so that the SATA drives emulate IDE drives. If you can't find it in your bios, try googling for your motherboard manual.