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Error Windows Setup: "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"

This is not exactly a programming question but I thought you guys might be able to help. I just received a Dell Precision 670 workstation. Windows is not recognizing the hard drive and I have experienced this before with other computers. I usually would just go in the bios and set the configuration to compatibility mode.

I have no idea how to do this on this machine. There is this Adaptec SCSI HostRaid BIOS v4.30.4S5 screen on startup. It says to press CTRL A for SCSI select utility. It shows a Maxtor ATLAS10K5_73WLS for the drive.

I was wondering if anyone out there knew how to configure this thing so that windows setup will recognize the hard drive? Any advice is very much appreciated and if you have to know further information please let me know. Raid was turned off in the BIOS for this device.

TY

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You'll have to go to Adaptec's site and download the windows setup drivers. On XP you'll need to put the drivers onto a floppy disk and put that in a floppy drive - i'm not sure about vista as i've never installed it but i think the installer wasn't changed until Win7 to allow removable media (usb drive, etc.) for the "F6" drivers.

You'll see a prompt that says "Press F6 for additional drivers" (or something similar) press F6 then let setup search your A: drive. You should be good to go then.

Zypher
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  • Vista/Windows 2008 allow for loading drivers from removable media. The disk detection phase doesn't happen till much later, allowing for runtime loading of drivers. – Mark Henderson Jul 30 '09 at 00:08
  • Also, you'll know you've found the correct drivers on the adaptec site, because there will be a file in the root called "oemsetup.inf" which contains the NT4/XP loading instructions – Mark Henderson Jul 30 '09 at 00:09
  • How do I know which product I have? –  Jul 30 '09 at 02:32
  • You will need to refer to the documentation that came with the machine, or press Control+A to get into the SCSI Select utility and have a poke around in there to find the model number. – Mark Henderson Jul 30 '09 at 02:33
  • Ok thanks, all I can find is Adaptec AIC 7901x, and that driver does not exist on their site. Thank you all very much. I will try and find the driver. –  Jul 30 '09 at 02:51