Quake3World

I have an older computer with an MSI motherboard ms-7061. I am trying to install windows xp and it keeps saying it cannot find a hard drive. I have seen this before but I can't seem to find the sata driver for this motherboard. Can someone please help or advise. Thanks

Windows XP doesn't have default drivers for SATA controllers (because it's old) which is why it can't find your hard drive, it simply can't see them. During installation, you have to manually install the SATA controller driver.

First you'll have to download the SATA controller driver from MSI and then copy the driver onto a floppy or USB flash drive (IIRC, flash drives only work with XP SP2 or later and on most motherboards depending on age). Early in the Windows XP installation process, you'll see something like, "Press F6 if you need to install a RAID driver" flash on the bottom of your screen briefly. You need to hit F6 during this time, if you miss it, restart and try again. Wait for it to load and follow the instructions, it will get to a point where it will ask you to find your driver for manual installation.

You can download the driver here, though it looks like there are three motherboard models for the 7061 series, you'll need to know exactly which one you have:
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=searc ... e=download

I don't think this is the case if you have an XP CD w SP3 slipstreamed. Much better SATA support included that way. You could also set your SATA bios option to 'legacy' mode and it should install OK.

No, I have an XP sp3 disk and same thing

buy Win 7

less headache

obsidian wrote:Windows XP doesn't have default drivers for SATA controllers (because it's old) which is why it can't find your hard drive, it simply can't see them. During installation, you have to manually install the SATA controller driver.

First you'll have to download the SATA controller driver from MSI and then copy the driver onto a floppy or USB flash drive (IIRC, flash drives only work with XP SP2 or later and on most motherboards depending on age). Early in the Windows XP installation process, you'll see something like, "Press F6 if you need to install a RAID driver" flash on the bottom of your screen briefly. You need to hit F6 during this time, if you miss it, restart and try again. Wait for it to load and follow the instructions, it will get to a point where it will ask you to find your driver for manual installation.

You can download the driver here, though it looks like there are three motherboard models for the 7061 series, you'll need to know exactly which one you have:
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=searc ... e=download

I tried all 3 of these on floppies after pressing F6. Each time it says "the file txtsetup.oem" could not be found. What to do now

read my post above.

tried SATA legacy (IDE) mode?

cant find an option for that in bios

try AHCI mode

try under boot options or somewhere in advanced options.

sry, i'm an asus lad not msi

cannot find ahci anywhere in bios have searched and searched

Been downloading and downloading sata drivers. Finally found the right one and it works from the floppy. Thanks to all for help

glad you got it sorted

glad you didnt buy win7