You don't need to worry about drivers at all. If you have the basic DELL restore disk for the PC you can add whatever drivers are necessary later by just grabbing them from the manufacturer site....such as SATA, PATA, SCSI or whatever. You could setup Win_XP without even the right DELL disks...it just takes more time to get all the drivers right. Dell has all the drivers posted for your machine if you go to the DELL WEBSITE and put in your asset tag number on your machine. It will give you specific drivers for your machine from the day it was ordered. So....having the correct CD's at all is irrelevant except for time related issues.
You are partly correct. However, unless the correct controller drivers are on the Dell reinstallation disk, you can't get a hard drive formatted not can you install Windows.
Gnome.... You wrote.... ________________ "You are partly correct. However, unless the correct controller drivers are on the Dell reinstallation disk, you can't get a hard drive formatted not can you install Windows." _________________ Actually, no offense...but its ALL correct Gnome. If the drivers are not on the Dell restore disk, entering your PC's ASSET TAG NUMBER on DELL website will reveal what controller subsystem is being used by the PC and you can then get them from the DELL website itself....or by going to the manufacturers website itself....then format away as you like. Even if it is an "add-in" 3rd party controller you can always get the Win_XP drivers from the manufacturers site and then format your drive.
Well, you've got one on me. I just rechecked the Dell website with my Service Tag, and there was no mention of "controller subsystem" nor "controller driver".... drivers for lots of other things, though. You have to get the controller driver to access the HD, to be able to set up Windows to be able to access Dell's site. If the controller driver is missing, you can't do any of the rest of it. If you know how to get said driver and get it installed, I'm all ears. However, this thread wasn't exactly about "having drivers". Of course anyone would go to the website to get the most current ones... this "controller driver" issue is part of the Windows installation, not related to "device drivers".
You wrote: Well, you've got one on me. I just rechecked the Dell website with my Service Tag, and there was no mention of "controller subsystem" nor "controller driver".... drivers for lots of other things, though. You have to get the controller driver to access the HD, to be able to set up Windows to be able to access Dell's site. If the controller driver is missing, you can't do any of the rest of it. _________________________ LOL. OK ....np. First thing to realize.... ....if it's not listed with the service tag info...then it didn't come with the DELL PC. So.... I suspect your controller is not an onboard controller....hence why you cannot find any reference to it....it's likely a 3rd party product. Also.... During Windows installs since the NT days it asks you if you would like to install 3rd party SCSI drivers and to hit the F5 key to install them.(might be F8...I forget at this moment...but it is an "F" key). This is during the VERY beginning of the OS install process. It will then prompt you for the drivers which you need to provide by FLOPPY DISK/CD or by USB drive if you have the USB driver loaded...which one to load from depends on the age of the PC and the physical hardware resources you have available. It will then load the correct SCSI drivers from your disk/CD/USB so you can do whatever need be done to the drive. Again...if the drivers are not on the DELL site then you have a 3rd party "add-in" controller and must go to the manufacturers website and get the drivers to put them on floppy,CD or USB for the boot process. If this doesn't help then tell me the name of the 3rd party controller and I will try to find some drivers for you. Pop the PC case and eyeball it. At the very least the controller chipset should have a name on it. Hope this helps.
Yes, I got you on all of that. I even tried it (F6, BTW...), but it told me to "insert the disk with driver in Drive A"... (As I didn't get it to work, I wasn't sure whether this was the proper routine for it...) 1. Didn't have the separate driver 2. This machine has no floppy The controller IS onboard chip. To get it from Dell, they'd have to put it on floppy for me (presuming it would fit... then they'd ask "why do you need it? It's already on your XP Home reinstallation disk", you know?), and I'd have to install a floppy to run it.
You wrote: "Yes, I got you on all of that. I even tried it (F6, BTW...), but it told me to "insert the disk with driver in Drive A"... (As I didn't get it to work, I wasn't sure whether this was the proper routine for it...) 1. Didn't have the separate driver 2. This machine has no floppy The controller IS onboard chip. To get it from Dell, they'd have to put it on floppy for me (presuming it would fit... then they'd ask "why do you need it? It's already on your XP Home reinstallation disk", you know?), and I'd have to install a floppy to run it." ________________________ OK.... If that F6 process didn't work then it was the wrong driver you tried to load(it should be a .SYS or .BIN file I believe...it has to be read from the OS...so no .EXE's or .COMs...etc)....and if you don't have a floppy drive then load them from a CD you create with the drivers on it. You can switch CD's from the OS restore disk while loading these drivers and then switch back when it is done loading them. Also....if it is an "on the motherboard"/onboard SCSI then it is a DELL licensed product and the drivers MUST BE on the DELL website. Everything is there. I have never not been able to find a driver for ANY hardware I have needed...and I have setup many brands of laptops, PC's and servers...including all recent DELL servers with DELL SCSI PERC controllers. So.... You need to determine what name is physically on the chipset and then search DELL and GOOGLE that brand of SCSI. The DELL search engine sucks so use Google and it probably will find them for you...but you MUST find out the chipset brand name. You already attempted to load the SCSI drivers so I have to assume you know the brand name already....you probably just had the wrong model drivers. No need to play games with DELL tech support. If its a DELL product it MUST BE on the Dell website. Trust me...I've been doing this for years. The drivers ARE THERE...you just have to find them. If you want... ...gimme' the asset tag, the chipset name, and any code numbers stamped on the SCSI controller chips and I will find the drivers for you.
Thanks. I'll keep your offer of help in mind. Hopefully, I already have something of a solution... I bought a later-dated disk on eBay with the presumption the controller driver is on it.