Windows 2000 or Windows XP Setup may not be able to complete the installation of Windows, because it does not detect the computer's Serial ATA disk drive controller. Windows Setup may report this information in a message similar to this one:

This problem may be caused by the absence of a required driver for the Serial ATA disk drive.

Microsoft Windows does not -- as of October 2005 -- have built-in support for Serial ATA (SATA) controllers and hard disk drives. This includes Windows XP (with or without SP1 or SP2) and Windows 2000. To install Windows on a Toshiba computer with a Serial ATA drive, it's necessary to install the Toshiba RAID driver / Serial ATA driver during the Windows Setup installation process.

Other hard disk drive interfaces that typically require additional drivers from the Host Bus Adapter manufacturer include FC-AL (Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop) and SCSI.

Follow the procedure below to install both the Toshiba RAID driver / Serial ATA driver and Windows XP or Windows 2000 on Toshiba computers that use a Serial ATA hard drive controller.

Windows Setup can install the required driver only from a diskette (floppy disk) -- not from a CD, or from any other media.

If you have a CD containing the driver, copy it to a diskette before starting the procedure below (and skip the steps concerning downloading and unzipping the driver).

The ideal diskette drive to use for this procedure is the Toshiba 3.5" External USB Floppy Disk Drive. For information about this drive, or to purchase it, visit Toshiba Direct's Accessories page.

If a diskette drive is not available, then Windows 2000 or Windows XP may be installed (on Toshiba notebooks with a Serial ATA hard disk drive contoller) only from the Recovery CD or DVD that's packaged with the computer.

If Windows Setup stops as indicated in the screen shot above, it will be necessary to restart it, as described below.

Read through the entire procedure below before attempting it. In particular, it's necessary to be ready to press the F6 key as soon as the prompt for it appears (see Step 7).

Follow these steps to install both the Toshiba RAID driver / Serial ATA driver and Windows XP or Windows 2000 on a Toshiba computers that use a Serial ATA hard drive controller:

1. (Using another computer) download the Toshiba RAID Driver / Serial ATA Driver package.

2. Extract the driver files from the ZIP package to a folder on your desktop.

3. Copy the driver files to a blank formatted diskette. Once the files have been copied, eject the diskette from the drive.

4. Connect the Toshiba 3.5" External USB Floppy Disk Drive to the notebook computer.

5. Insert the Windows XP or Windows 2000 CD into the computer's CD drive and restart the computer. If the computer is off, then turn it on, and insert the Windows CD into the CD drive.

6. Watch carefully, as Windows Setup progresses, and carefully read the text on the bottom line of each screen. At the screen labelled "Windows Setup" (typically the second screen after Setup starts) this message should appear at the bottom of the screen:

              "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver ..."

7. Press the F6 key -- immediately. This screen will disappear after only a second or two.

Other messages will appear, and -- after a considerable delay -- the following screen will appear:

8. Press the  S key to specify an additional device.

Other messages will appear, and -- after a considerable delay -- the following screen will appear:

9. Insert the diskette containing the Toshiba RAID driver / Serial ATA driver, and press the Enter key.

Leave this diskette in the drive during the remainder of the Windows Setup process, as it will be accessed several times.

10. When prompted to select a driver from the provided list, choose "Toshiba RAID Driver (Windows XP/2000)". When messages appear regarding Windows Logo testing, click the Yes button to continue.

Once the driver has been installed, Windows Setup will recognize the computer's Serial ATA hard drive, and the Windows installation should proceed normally.

11. Continue with Windows Setup -- leaving the driver diskette in the diskette drive until the computer is restarted at the end of the installation process.

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