Computers drive me nuts. I uninstalled VISTA in a box and reinstalled XP. It went smooth because the drive ( 1 out of 2 WD RAPTORS ) was recognized for the new XP disk, so basically i killed the vista code, no problem there. Trying to install the 2nd raptor 10 k drive in another box and the bios SEES the drive but when the XP disk gets to the point where it says............... press R for repair or press enter to install a new xp .................... i enter ENTER and up pops a dialog box that says it SEES NO hard drive. How can i wipe that hard drive flat clean? Why does the bios SEE the HD but the xp disk bounces it? Thks
How to downgrade from Vista to XP http://www.detailingbliss.com/forum/f93/how-downgrade-vista-xp-5821.html Applicable? Basically its just saying that you need to nuke your drive with Vista on it before you try to install XP. Have you tried formatting it prior to the XP install? Partition Magic would do the trick nicely.
This problem drive had Vista on it? If so, and if possible, suggest you mount it as the second drive in your other rig and run a low level format utility to be sure to wipe the MBR. I tried to LLF a disk once when it was the boot, single drive... the screen went black, so I don't know if it was formatting or not... I interrupted the process, so I don't know if it was actually formatting the entire disk. The partition info was gone first, of course. If you try this, allow enough time for the format to have taken place even though the screen is black, then check it out. It takes about an hour to LLF a 300G HD, more time if the drive is larger of course.