Although I would probably take an image of computer first, you might want to see if you can find the latest chipset drivers for your laptop that supports Windows XP and see if it has SATA support. It's possible that installing them can provide the SATA support you need. Since your BIOS Setup says you are set for ATA, it's viewing the SATA drive as an ATA drive, not an AHCI drive (as you have already found out). There are some posts out on the web for people who have successfully flipped from ATA to AHCI post installation, but it's not pretty and doesn't always work. Best bet is to (as Lawrie said) slipstream the SATA drivers onto your XP disk and install. Of course this doesn't help if you have an OEM version that just has a system restore disk. The old way was to have the drivers on a floppy when you install, but that doesn't help since no one has floppy drives anymore. It will probably require a reinstallation of XP.

XP did not come with SATA drivers. Vista and beyond does, but you still need to install the appropriate chipset drivers after installing Vista.

I've used nLite successfully to slipstream the drivers (in order to get a computer from ATA to ACHI), but I also had an XP disk to use. Google it and you'll find lots of information about it.

Again, I would try installing the chipset drivers that contain the SATA drivers and see if that works first. Either do a backup image first, or at least set a restore point before doing so, just in case.

John

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