[JustinPS]

I am stuck in a odd situation with my laptop. It's now gotten to the point where I just want to do a repair of Windows and hope that fixes things, but whenever I boot into my Windows XP CD, it says that it can't find any hard drives on my laptop. I can still boot into safe mode and access my files, so my hard drive is obviously there.

Is there a way to initiate a windows repair WITHOUT booting into the CD? Or, can anyone think of why my CD can't find my hard drive?

[midders]

Could be that your laptop has a SATA hard drive, so that you'll need to either have a floppy with the drivers and press F6 when prompted (when booting from CD) or slipstream the drivers onto a new install disk using Nlite or similar.

Slainte

midders

[aka Brett]

On some units you can go into the bios and select the the alternate to ahci mode thereby allowing easy install of xp.
XP doesnt know you have a sata drive this way.
Much easier than slipstreaming a cd or fighting the f6 method and installing the driver....although not all units have the option in the bios it is worth checking out...my dell laptop has it and the option worked

[Sudschick]

Thank you for responding, but I don't understand a single word you said. I'm afraid this group is much too advanced for me. Thank you anyway.
Sudsy

[JustinPS]

Thank you for responding, but I've definitely done a full reinstall on this laptop before using my CD and it worked fine. I also don't have a floppy drive so I wouldn't be able to load anything floppy-wise.

There are also no options for switching into/out of AHCI in my BIOS. My BIOS is actually sadly limited.

Is there a way for me to do a repair from safe mode?

[aka Brett]

If you have used that cd before to install xp then its not due to a sata drive.I do not know why it is not detecting your hard drive

[lisa6447]

try a system restore in safemode go to a point where you know you did not have problems

[JustinPS]

I have tried that, back to a week before the problem started, but no luck.

The problem is that I'm stuck in a Windows Activation loop (try to log onto windows, says I need to activate, I say OK, it says I'm activated, I say OK, it says I need to activate, etc). I can access my files by going to safe mode with command prompt and running explorer.exe, so my hard drive is obviously fine, and I have a legit copy of Windows that has been activated.

I have not found an answer to the question "Can I do a Windows Repair from safe mode?" on any forums yet, and I've looked at dozens. I have no way of getting my CD to recognize my hard drive, so I'm scared of even formatting the drives and doing a complete reinstall because I don't think my CD will detect my drive.

[lisa6447]

Try this if your able to in safemode... Disk Management
Start by seeing if it shows up in Disk Management (right-click My Computer, pick Manage, then Disk Management.)
I bet you can see it on the right side. Find it, then right-click it and you should get an option to Import it. Then it'll show up in My Computer.lets hope it works regards lisa

[lisa6447]

try googling activation loop first

[JustinPS]

I've looked at all the activation loop threads (well, the first 5 or 6 pages in google) and have tried a few dozen options already, but nothing has worked. It's looking like my only option is to do a system repair or a full reinstall, but I'm not going to risk doing a reinstall since my XP CD can't see my hard drive.

I will see if Disk Management is detecting my hard drive correctly when I get home, but since I can get into safe mode and I can access all my files, I don't think it's a hard drive issue


My other option is booting into my laptop's boot partition (it's a Sony Vaio), but I have also tried that and it just hangs, tries a different resolution, hangs, and then restarts. Maybe if I had a system restore disc from Sony I could use that...?

[lisa6447]

With my Acer laptop i tried to upgrade stupid of me i messed it up badly so i went to the Acer site and i got all the documention to make a recovery disc also all drivers are there but i got those later i put in all computer specs and it was all there and it worked. First off i went into the bios in safemode changed to boot from CD hope it works for you with Sony good luck let me know lisa