Hi i have a second hand DELL laptop in which my hard drive failed. Windows XP was installed on it.

I have just bought a new hard drive: Samsung IDE MODEL HM160HC

I have fitted the hard drive and im trying to install Windows VISTA

Im getting the error message : No drives were found. Click load driver to provide mass storage driver for installation.

Basically i think the computer is not recognising the hard drive

Does anyone have any answers, the hard drive type (IDE) is the CORRECT one as verified in a computer repair shop to the previous broken one??? So you have only one drive installed - the new one, correct? If so, boot to the Vista cd and begin the installation process.Yes just the basic new correct replacement internal laptop hard drive, for a DELL laptop that is capable of running vista.

The error message comes up shortly after loading the Vista CD ROM, just after you choose the required language & click install.

It will only allow me the custom option to install windows (pos because brand new drive). I click on this & it comes up with the error message:

"No drives were found. Click load driver to provide mass storage driver for installation".

Clicking on load driver doesnt seam to work either.

No driver disk came with the hard drive & i do not have the original laptop untility cd roms as its second hand.

I`ve done some basic checking on google & others have reported similar problems with SATA drives, fixed by changing the jumpers.
Being IDE without any jumpers this fix will not work in this situation.

This may be a hardware issue as well???Go into the bios and see if there is a setting called: SATA Configuration. If so, set it to IDE, save the change and reboot.chers i thought the answer could lay there,

Can you be more specific as to where on the BIOS screen i will find this please?It may be in the Advanced section - but just look around, you'll find it. Be CAREFUL not to make any other changes.Problem solved

It was a missing interposer board that connects to my hard drive that was missing.

The computer now recognises the hard drive

Chers Thanks for the update.Excellent !
\Glad to HEAR you're fixed