Disk does not contain a Windows XP-compatible partition

maxta · 5 Mar 2007 at 11:55

Last week i bought a 36gb raptor to run windows and games etc.

I already had a 250gb western digital sata hard drive with windows on.

I hooked up my raptor and installed windows on it, and then formatted the partition of my 250gb drive which had XP on it.

I was unhappy with my raptor so i decided to sell it yesterday. I installed XP back on an empty partition of my 250gb drive and formatted my raptor via my computer and right clicking on the drive. I was running windows fine and installed all my drivers and programs, switched off my PC and disconnected the raptor.

I started my PC up again and it asked me to install windows again, so i inserted the disk and tried to install it to the partition of the 250gb drive in which it originally was. Then it says:

"However this disk does not contain a Windows XP-compatible partition.

To continue installing Windows XP, return to the partition selection screen and create a windows XP-compatible partition on the disk above. If there is no free space on the disk delete an existing partition and create a new one."

I delete the partition and create a new partition, it didnt work. I tried installing it to another empty partition i havent used since getting the drive, and it says the same thing with that. So it will not let me install windows on the partition it originally was on.

However if i hook my raptor back up, it allows me to install windows on my 250gb drive no problem, and i can use it no problem. But when i disconnect my raptor after switching my PC off, the same happens again.

HELP!

Need to send this raptor out today and i want my PC up and running.

rpstewart · 5 Mar 2007 at 11:59

Which SATA port is the 250Gb drive connected to?

At a first guess Windows has put some of the boot files on the Raptor but that doesn't really explain why you could boot off the 250 before you got the Raptor and why you can't install it now.

maxta · 5 Mar 2007 at 12:19

What do you mean which port? On my motherboard i have 4 SATA ports, 2 above another 2.

My 250gb one is in the bottom right, whilst my raptor is in the top left of the four. However when i disconnected the raptor i plugged in all 4 sata cables to the ports and tried booting the hard drive up on each one and the same thing happened each time.

At this moment im installing XP on both hard drives, and then when it gives me the option of which windows to load up, il load up the one on my 250gb drive, and then il format the raptor like that - this is what i did when i transfered from 2 maxtor IDE drives to 1 western digital SATA drive, because when i disconnected my IDE drives it asked me to install windows again - however it never said that theres no compatible partition.

The easiest solution is to probably go out and buy another hard drive to install windows on and use my WD250 as the slave. But i dont want to. I am after getting a 74gb raptor but really need to keep my money.

rpstewart · 5 Mar 2007 at 12:57

What's the actual message you're getting when it asks you to install again, I can't work out which one it is from what's been said so far.

maxta · 5 Mar 2007 at 13:12

Basically when iv disconnected my raptor and restart my PC, when i go to install windows on my WD250, instead of it asking me if i would like to format the partition before going ahead it says:

"However this disk does not contain a Windows XP-compatible partition.

To continue installing Windows XP, return to the partition selection screen and create a windows XP-compatible partition on the disk above. If there is no free space on the disk delete an existing partition and create a new one."

Search google for the above quote ^^

siege2 · 5 Mar 2007 at 15:19

looks like the 36gb raptor has the windows xp on plug it back in exactly as was to see if it boots if so, then use something like acronis to copy one hard drive to the other, once that is done then plug the 250 gb exactly in the same place the raptor was plugged into for a demo see http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/890736/Acronis_True_Image_Home_v10_0_4871

maxta · 5 Mar 2007 at 16:53

The raptor has now been sent away.

So now iv only got the 250gb WD drive, i plugged it in exactly where the raptor was after removing it.

I didnt try copying the files over, and now i cant because i have sent the drive out.

Just got in so im checking if windows works....keep you posted.

maxta · 5 Mar 2007 at 17:38

This is what it says exactly when i try to install windows on any of my partitions of my hard drive:

Windows XP Professional Setup
=======================

To install windows xp on the partition you selected,
Setup must write some startup files to the following disk:

238473 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

However, this disk does not contain a Windows XP-compatible
partition.

To continue installing Windows XP, return to the partition selection
screen and create a Windows XP-compatible partition on the disk above.
If there is no free space on the disk, delete an existing
partition, and then create a new one.

To return to the partition selection screen, press ENTER.

I return to the partition screen and create a new partition from my new space, but no luck. Please help, if i cant solve this i have to fork out £100 for a raptor tomorow.

Edit @ 6.10pm - I just fully formatted the C drive partition using this guide on how to do it: http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/reformat-NTFS-XP.html

And guess what, its still saying the same thing. Googling like a mofo here

Edit @ 6.20pm - I may have found a solution but need to wait to borrow someone elses hard drive. I found this post on another forum:

the problem is that windows cannot recoganize any of the partitions as active.
all you need to do is set the partition to active using fdisk(option 2) or partition magic(set it as primary and not logical).
but you will loose data on that partition only.

...and it led me to thinking this. When i got my raptor i downloaded and used partition magic in an attempt to add the space that was formerly used for my OS onto another partition of my WD250 - but it wouldnt let me add it to the partition i wanted.

And since it recognised my raptor as the primary drive, all my other partitions on my WD250 were selected as extended partitions known as logical drives. And now that my raptor is gone, it cant recognize and install windows on any of the partitions because of this reason (as stated in quote above).

So now im thinking about borrowing my girlfriends hard drive out of her busted PC, loading the OS up on that, install partition magic and change my WD250 C: drive partition to the primary/active one, and then go from there.

Hopefully this works.

PS. Sorry for the long post. Will post later when i get the drive.

rpstewart · 5 Mar 2007 at 18:23

Let's take a step back here. When you install XP it boots to the blue screen, goes through the whole loading drivers bit then gives you the EULA to approve (F8 to continue bit). It should then present a list of attached drives and give you the option of picking one to install onto.

Couple of things:

What does it say about the 250Gb drive? Partition info, space info etc.

Are there any other HDDs (internal or external), card readers or flash drives connected to the PC when you're installing?

I return to the partition screen and create a new partition from my new space, but no luck

What message do you get when you try and create a partition at this point?

maxta · 5 Mar 2007 at 18:44

After the blue screen, loading drivers etc it shows the windows xp pro setup, with a list of options such as setting windows xp press enter, to repair using recovery console press r, to quit press f3. So i hit enter to set up, it then gos to another screen and says says please wait... (at the bottom) and loads up the microsoft agreement, of course i hit f8 to agree, now it brings up a list of my partitions and says to set up windows xp on the selected item press enter, to create a partition in unpartitioned space press c, to delete partition press d.

Now these are my partitions:

Unpartitioned space 8mb
C: Partition 1 [Unknown] 38460mb (38460mb free)
D: Partition 2 (Movies Disk) [NTFS] 89997mb (79277mb free)
E: Partition 3 (TV Series) [NTFS] 49999mb (49933mb free)
F: Partition 4 (Music Disk) [NTFS] 49999mb (32366mb free)
G: Parition 5 (Misc Disk) [NTFS] 10001mb (8175mb free)
Unpartitioned space 8mb

I select C: (which is what XP was on previously before my raptor came into town - but obviously i formatted that drive once XP was installed onto the raptor) and then it says what i stated in my first post.

I have no other drives now, i sold my raptor, i have no other flash drives or card readers etc.

I select C drive and then it says what i said in the first post (about it needing a windows xp compatible partition), when i go back to partition screen and delete the c: partition and create a new partition with the unpartitioned space that it left, it changes to:

C: Partition 1 [New (Raw)] 38460mb (38460mb free)

So i try to install windows on that partition and it just says the same again.

maxta · 6 Mar 2007 at 00:09

Sorted.

I hooked up my girlfriends IDE hard drive, installed another OS because i couldnt loads hers up, entered windows, connected my SATA drive and changed it to primary via Partition Magic, then switched off and disconnected the IDE drive and installed windows on my drive.