No, you need to tell me your computer or motherboard make and model.

We're almost there.

If you don't know that, run this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.htmlMOTHERBOARD NAME: DELL DIMENSION 8400

DISK DRIVE: Maxtor 6Y080M0 (80 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA)

Guess it's a SATA after all...

When I finally do get a hold of this driver, how can I direct XP setup to look in the D:\

I hit F6 just to see what happens, and it only mentioned the A:\ Drive.

I suppose I could "slipstream" the driver into a new Bootable XP SETUP cd I can make.

But, I need the driver.Some people have reported inability with that model to load off anything other than a FLOPPY! And you make it sound like there was no option to change it.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18329.html

This is a bad thing. (Personally I will always have a floppy for a lot of reasons, but we won't go into that now.)

The suggested resolution is to borrow a floppy for the install. Scroll down a liittle farther and you will see how a few people overcame this by themselves by altering BIOS settings!

Let me know if this works. SORRY we didn't get here sooner.  I suppose I could "slipstream" the driver into a new Bootable XP SETUP cd I can make.

But, I need the driver.This might be easier if it works:

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your FILES backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.Here goes...

Wish me luck!I'll keep the light on.  Thank you so much for your help. I really do appreciate it.

The little "trick" worked, and I'm now finally on my dual-boot Ubuntu Linux OS.

Amazing what can be accomplish with a few mouse-clicks...I'm glad you are all fixed up and THANKS for posting back.  

I HOPE you spend a lot of time on the Linux boot.