This post is for reference. It is not intended to be deliberately confusing. It just happens.

The title says it all. The wrong drive may be:
A new blank drive from OEM.
A drive bused exclusively by a non-windows OS.
A drive that has Vista.
Thins issue is not well understood, even by the experts

This link below has the right title, the wrong answer.
Preparing New Hard Drive For Windows XP Installation

The right answer should be the answer that even covers the rare cases that led to the question in the first place.

If you study this link very careful, thee is at least one answer that helps take care of the rare case where the XP CD will stall and not install. But other 'experts' muddle the issue with their limited experience.

There is a place where one poster says "Drive manufacturer's recommend using there utilities but its not necessary." Not always true! Just because it never happened to you does not mean it never happens at all. The OEM people know that the drive has to be prepared in some cases. It has to be ready for a OS that requires something.

In the Microsoft KB that is a warning that in may not be possible to install if the drive is not in the CONDITION or state the setup expects. The issue was resolved, but it still affects users with older versions of the setup utility. In brief, the setup utility has to have some free drive space before the rest of the install continues. Either in a Windows partition or unused space that can be found in the drive structure.

Also If nth the drive is not a MSDOS type, the setup hangs.
And there is more. But the issue is now history. As to why, it no longer matters. Unless you want to install XP, a OS MS wants to forget.

Conclusion: Sometimes, rarely perhaps, the XP install CD can not get to the point where is asks if you want to format the drive. In that case you must prep the drive with some other tool, such as a bookable floppy drive made from a download on the Manufactures web site.

The right answer can be found in the Microsoft KB, but in a different form. MS says to prep the drive using Vista or some PE program.

Some references.
http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/parted.html
http://www.dell-driversdown.com/dell-driver/driver_8303.html
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard

Remarks and corrections welcome. Please document what you know so I won't have to find NIT nor you.Quote from: Geek-9pm on May 26, 2011, 01:29:01 PM

This issue is not well understood, even by the experts