It ended up being the XP Pro disc I was using. Don't know why but I tried
another one to install and it worked right away and things are fine. No
SATA drivers needed.

Thanks for the help.

"Anna" <myname@myisp.net> wrote in message
news:uEpbhe8WJHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
>
> "Paul " <pcostanza@cox.net> wrote in message
> news:3438E7E1-3A9C-4EFC-9ECA-87D55B02D986@microsoft.com...
> I'm trying to install XP on a SATA rack drive and having problems.
> I've disconnected all other hard drives, put in the XP disc and booted up
> fine....it sees the XP disc and starts the setup process. It continues to
> copy files and then has to do a reboot. Upon reboot, I get the message,
> "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart". Of course
> doing this just makes the same thing happen. The disc is a 320 GB drive
> with a 45 gb OS partition that's formatted NTFS and clean.
> I've done the same process in other drives with Linux OS's and Windows
> 7 beta with no problems and wonder why this XP install is not working.
> The BIOS sees the SATA drive and even booting directly to the drive
> doesn't work. I can put in any other drive in the rack and boot directly
> to it with no problems.
> Any ideas and am I even making sense?
> TIA
>
>
> "JS" <@> wrote in message news:egk5LI7WJHA.5476@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> During the install process there is a point where you can install drivers
> (Press F6).
> Did you install the SATA drivers?
> JS
> http://www.pagestart.com
>
>
>
> "Paul " <pcostanza@cox.net> wrote in message
> news:C118E474-166D-49EF-890F-325692407ADD@microsoft.com...
> No, did not but I've never had to before.....I'll give that a go and see
> if it works. I'll feel awfully stupid if that's the case.
> thanks
>
>
> Paul:
> I really don't think this is a SATA controller driver issue since you've
> indicated you're able to at least begin the XP OS setup process. If it
> *was* a SATA driver issue you would have rec'd a message that Setup could
> not detect a HDD at the very beginning of the setup process and you would
> have had to abort at that point.
>
> I assume the "SATA rack drive" you're referring to is a removable HDD
> mobile rack affair, right?
>
> You're absolutely sure the problem SATA HDD has been correctly installed
> in the removable tray of the rack? We'll assume it is since you say
> there's no problem with another HDD in the same mobile rack.
>
> And you've also indicated that you've installed the problem disk as an
> internal HDD but that you still get that same error message during the XP
> install, right?
>
> You've indicated that the problem HDD is multi-partitioned. How did you
> accomplish that? Through Disk Management using your other boot drive?
>
> What happens if you install the problem HDD as a secondary HDD in your
> system, using your other HDD as the boot drive and accessing Disk
> Management? The secondary HDD is seen OK? If so, think it might be wise to
> delete all partitions and then start over with trying a fresh install of
> the OS with the disk in its mobile rack and again, if no go there, try
> connecting it again internally?
>
> Although it doesn't sound like a defective HDD problem it might still be a
> good idea to check out the disk with a HDD diagnostic utility from the
> disk's manuf.
> Anna
>