Windows XP setup cannot find any hard disk drives during installation

Products

• VMware
• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When installing Windows XP in a virtual machine on VMware ESX, Windows setup fails to detect hard disks in the virtual machine
• You see the error:
  
  Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, supply the correct drive during setup to proceed with installation.

 

When installing Windows XP in a virtual machine setup is unable to find the hard drives because no compatible disk controller driver is shipped on the Windows XP setup disc. You must supply the correct drive during setup to proceed with installation.

 

To ensure you supply the correct drive:

1. When creating the new virtual machine, select the BusLogic option for the Virtual SCSI Controller mode.
2. Attach the VMware SCSI driver floppy image and connect the virtual floppy drive to the virtual machine.
   
   
   • If you are using an ESX host and the Virtual Infrastructure client:
     
     
     1. Right-click the virtual machine from the Inventory pane.
     2. Click Edit settings.
     3. Click the virtual floppy drive and select Connected.
     4. Select Use floppy image.
     5. Browse to the location /vmimages.
     6. Select the file vmscsi-1.2.x.x.flp.
        
        
   • If you are using VMware Lab Manager the file is available from the media library.
     
     To insert the floppy disk into the virtual machine:
     
     1. From the virtual machine console window, move the pointer over the virtual machine name and click Insert Floppy.
     2. From the Media Library menu, select (LMStorage1) vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.
     3. Click Use.
3. Attach or insert the Windows XP installation media and connect it to the virtual machine.
4. Power on the virtual machine and open a console view of the virtual machine.
5. Click the console to assign keyboard control to the virtual machine.
6. When the blue Windows setup screen appears, press F6 when prompted.
7. When prompted for additional drivers, press S .
8. Press Enter to select the VMware SCSI Controller driver, and then Enter again to continue setup.
9. Complete Windows XP setup normally from this point.
   
   Note: When setup has completed the first phase of installation and restarts the virtual machine, you may need to disconnect or unassign the virtual floppy drive or the virtual machine may attempt to boot from the floppy image.
   
   For detailed instructions, see the PDF document attached to this article. For more information on installing Windows XP, see the VMware Guest Operating System Installation Guide.