Cannot load XP on Gateway MX6958

[Yeah Right]

Hello to all, I just formatted a sata drive on a gateway Laptop MX6958, then as I usually do load XP and away we go, but this time no go, XP does not recognize the Sata drive AND there is No Floppy . I wonder if anyone has had the same problems with sata drives and what a fix might be. I might add that the bios picks up the drive ok I used Hirens to format the drive , this is frustating to say the least.Would appreciate any comments.
TIA
M Cole NB Canada

[Bullfighter]

There should be an option in the BIOS to disable ACHI (or emulate PATA drives). Google is your friend.
Link (http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/10/23/windows-xp-setup-could-not-detect-and-find-any-sata-hard-disk-drive-on-ahci-mode/)

Good Luck!

[vr6rafal]

you're going to either need to slipstream the sata drivers on to the windows installation cd or get a external usb floppy drive and load drivers from there!!!

[Bullfighter]

If you are going to use the slip-streaming method you will want to use nLite (http://www.nliteos.com/guide/)

[navigatorrs]

I had this exact same issue today. I googled the crap out of the issue. I came across one post that stated to try another 'updated" XP CD. This worked perfect for me. I just recently purchased another XP Home CD. It worked like a charm on this exact issue!

[Yeah Right]

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions. I might add I had tried to slipstream the sata drivers by usb (No Floppy on this PC) nogo. I then tried an XP disc with sata drivers slipstreamed, did not work.I also tried a Vista home premium disc which should load sata, but without any result. there It seems that the drive, a Fujitsu may be the problem, I replaced it with a seagate and voila no trouble installing, possibly the Fujitsu requires its own sata drivers I seem to remember some reference to this on one of the threads I had tried, possibly on this forums Sata drivers thread which was very helpful.
Again many thank you's to all of you for your very informative suggestions