Question : Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer

Hi Experts,

I have an EVGA X58 FTW 3 Intel X58 Express Chipset Based Designed for Intel Socket 1366 Processors mobo. I want to install Windows XP. In the BIOS I have it set to IDE mode. When I boot from the XP disc I receive the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". The hard drive is recognized in the BIOS and I have another OS on the drive that I want to wipe and install XP. When I installed Windows 7 I had AHCI enabled and 7 installed just fine. When I select IDE mode XP doesn't see any hard disk drives.

Shouldn't XP see the hard drive since it's in IDE mode?

Thanks!

Answer : Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer

I suspect the original drive will also work fine on the SATA-II port.   The issue was simply that XP doesn't recognize SATA-III.

As for switching to AHCI "after the fact" ==>  install the AHCI drivers; then turn on AHCI in the BIOS.   Note that in a non-server environment there is VERY little performance difference between IDE mode and AHCI mode.   So if you're expecting the performance to improve when you switch to AHCI you'll be disappointed.