So this is what you need to do to get this to work. You need another computer with an optical drive, working USB ports, and a thumb drive greater than 2gb's. Download Nlite, USB Multiboot 10, and your SATA drivers. You wanna copy the Xp install disk to a folder not on the C drive. Use Nlite, to add your SATA drivers to the Xp install, then use USB Multiboot 10 to add make the install bootable on your thumb drive. Then just change the boot order to the thumb drive when you boot your pc, and BAM! Works fine for me 
But the thing is, it came with XP Home installed on it (but no recovery software with it) it has the sticker on the bottom, etc....so there has to be a driver.
So....I'm actually using it right now (Windows 7 beta) so I know the thing works (and it works very nice with Linux)....so I went this route (Win 7) to see what it's using for a driver....it just says - Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller - so I would think the ones I was trying earlier should have been working.
I can leave this beta version on it I suppose, they just won't be able to get updates, I don't think that's in violation of the license....I think the best option might be to see if they want to spend the $45 for the software recovery kit....that's cheaper than buying a new one.....she's just a teenager so she doesn't have much money.
drivers for that unit, they suggest to disable SATA to install XP, but did you not say before that you did not see that option in the BIOS?
Upgrading the BIOS may give you that option.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01675438&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=4051142
I typed the product number off the tag to make sure I got the right one.
It's a Mini 110c-1100CA Model (which isn't listed on the US or Canadian site). I don't have a real copy of Windows 7 32 bit (just the beta versions which appear to be corrupt) all three of my computers have Win 7 64 bit & I also have 2 copies of Vista 64 bit (no 32 bit). I didn't bother doing anything with it yesterday but I might look into it some more today & see if I can figure out what it has for a controller or if I can get one of the beta Win 7 32 bit DVD to work proper so I can have a look at what it says the controller is.
I'll probably end up just getting HP to send the recovery software kit....it says it's $45 with shipping & 1-3 days shipping....that would be the easy thing 
Every time I click on one of their Links it comes up with a Page unable to be found but it appears that there are quite a few different models of the Mini 110c.
With 7 Installed what's it tell you about the Installed Drivers? Apparently there appears to be at least 20 different models of the 110c and you need to look at the suffix of the Model Number Compaq Mini 110c-1010EB PC the 1010EB seems to be a bit important so I'm supposing that there is more than one Chip Set Involved here and you probably don't have either a Intel Matrix SATA Controller or you have the wrong Drivers for the one in that unit.
It's very hard to suggest anything when I don't have any idea what's in this thing. But it's defiant that you have the wrong Driver for the SATA Controller.
And nLite is a joy to use isn't it? :^0
Col
As far as I know I put the right driver in....it's supposed to be an Intel SATA Matrix Controller.
So I tried putting it in another laptop & installing Windows on it....works fine in compatability mode but I can't get it to work in AHCI (which I need for the netbook)....I know the proper driver for the laptop controller but it doesn't seem to work in it either. I missing something here....I just don't know what.
As for including drivers with nLite....that's pretty slick...I like it!....thanks
nLite works well for that type of thing and I use it all of the time when it comes to building XP Install Disc's.
I also include Video, Audio and so on without any real problems. 
Col
Yup.....that's a neat little cable....then I could use some of my old hardware
I think I should order me one of them for my birthday
will also work
if you have a full sized desktop CD/DVD drive you can use it
if you have one of these
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3276554&Sku=ULT40112
I think it's something I might like to have around.
In the meantime.....the stupid Mini 110c...
I give....
The darn thing just doesn't want to install XP with a thumb drive....I can put Windows 7 one it but the owner doesn't have a license for it....so right now I have the HDD formatting & installing XP on another laptop which I could set the BIOS to campatibality mode.
I figure I can catch it on the first boot into XP & switch it to the netbook...bootinto safe mode & install the chipset for the MB.
I don't know what else to try??????????
Compaq Mini 110c Netbook Restore
Here's the story...
It was virused right to death & after a couple days I still couldn't get everything removed to the point where I could at least get on the Windows Update site.
It didn't have a restore partition, just a restore point from the factory installation (it was using Roxio BackOnTrack, not Windows, for restore points) - well, the restore points were virused also.
I finally decided to download the recovery software from HP & do a clean install - one problem - the image was Linux, not XP. So, I go about making a bootable USB thumb drive with the XP installation files on it because, as we all know, netbooks don't have CD/DVD drives (that drove me crazy for a day until I discovered a nice little utility to do it proper). Okay, here I am, all set to install XP from the USB thumb drive....it boots to the drive....the whole setup process begins....it gets to the point where it's going to copy the setup files to the hard drive and ZAP!
It doesn't detect the HDD (WD1600BEVT SATA)
I looked all through the BIOS & I can't find anywhere to set the HDD type - it just detects it I guess.
I have booted to a Windows 98 USB drive & ran FDISK, it sees the drive & let me repartition it...I made it active....still no joy.
Anybody have any ideas?