Annoying Windows 7 instalation problem

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liamthepirate

liamthepirate

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Nov 17, 2008
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I bought a 1tb Hitachi deskstar internal drive and when I try to fresh install , when it asks me to pick a hard drive it doesn't recognise any of them (even the ones that were working and I was using before I tried to add the new hard drive) I don't think the new hard drive needs drivers but not sure..

So what I really want is to start a fresh 64bit Windows copy and then copy the stuff I wanted from old hard drives ..
Pc been not working now for about a week..I'm sure I'm just missing something small but hope you guys can help

 
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Ok get this i Connected the Old ass IDE drive and Windows ME loaded up haha...I dont even know how that is when i formated that hard drive when i connected it to see if there were any old photos on it.

So now it is reading that old hdd but its acting kinda strange all those little coloured square dancing around everywhere..but i wonder could i install windows 7 on this old drive just for the mean while?

Would that bring me closer to getting the sata drives working if i could do that
 
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Try disconnecting all drives except the new drive. Win7 can be a bit picky if it sees other drive(s) in the system that have or had an OS installed on them at one time or another, being XP or Win7.

I also have had the great pleasure with installing a drive that was perfectly fine but at one time it was part of a raid 0 setup and Win7 would not detect the drive when installing. I tried formating the drive and that didn't work. I actually had to low level format that drive to get it to work.

For the most part I think your running into the same issue. Win7 has thrown me a few curve balls that I have never seen but overall it's a great OS. Just picky on install.
 
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Sorry not trying to hijack this thread but I figured I would add this tidbit of information when installing Win7. I recently installed Win7 on a new drive and Win7 installed the MBR on the storage drive and not on the new drive and when I set the new drive as the Priority drive in the bios, Win7 would not boot. New one for me, in the end I forgot to set the new drive in the BIOS as the Priority drive before installing Win7. Lesson learned the hard way. To resolve this I had to create a new MBR on the new drive. Good Times.
 
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What are your options/Selections under On Chip SATA Type and under Hard Disk Boot Priority whats the order? I noticed under the Hard Disk Boot Priority that you have it set as:

First Boot Device: Hard Disk
Second Boot Device: Hard Disk
Third Boot Device: CDROM

When installing an OS it should be:

First Boot Device: CDROM
Second Boot Device: Hard Disk
Third Boot Device: Disable
 
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Try changing it to ACHI and remove the usb stick, basically brake it down to the basics. One HD(New Drive), CDROM(For Install), CPU, RAM and VID and nothing else.

And at this point it doesn't hurt to start from scratch. Like setting the BIOS to default settings. Even clearing the CMOS.

And PC's can drive you crazy if you let them but in the end it will get resolved by process of elimination and collective knowledge by other users/techs. Just got to keep at it and walk away to take a breather to regroup.
 
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ok i think i have been picking x86 version of windows but trying to load x64 drivers thats why it cant detect no drives from usb stick.. Is x86=64bit? it wont let me boot from cd now i going to reset the bios ust gota figure out how..im sure i can do this just a matter of time
 
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Windows 7 should have all the drivers to get you going but there's a chance that it doesn't. So it doesn't hurt to install them like aford10 suggested. x86 = 32bit and x64 = 64bit.
 
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Ok i tryed that everything seemed to reset. But now the IDE Channel 0 Master was the dvd drive earlyer but now its none and wont detect it .. What the hell like grrrrr im ready to throw it out the window

Is there a way i can start from scratch again or did i just do that

ok i got it to boot from cd, think ide cable could of been lose that time..il try this load the drivers to the right software this time and see how i go :/ i hope this isnt why it hasnt been picking up the hard drives because i was loading wrong drivers....
 
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ok i think iv found why the drivers were not showing up..i was picking 32bit version when i thought i was picking 64... why do they call it 86 if its really 32? i was thinking the higher number was better version :/

ok i can see the drivers now but theres a box that says hide drivers that are not compatable with th hardware on this computer. So when i click this none stay in the list.. theres like 20 different ones.

How do i know which one to use?
 
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Ok guy try get this sorted today once and for all..
Ok so I downloaded that second driver for 64bit Windows, clicked install on x64 Windows then comes to pick harddrive or load drivers and I get :

Achi_bootdisk_win7-x64

Then I click ok on that folder. Then I get two drivers in the list

1. Amd sata controller
2. Amd sata controller (both with the same paths in brackets after them)

Then if I click "hide drivers that are not compatible with hardware on this computer"

They both disappear either of them wouldn't load.

I want 64bit but I'm goin to try 32bit now and see will the 32 drivers load on to that

Edit: 32bit drivers showed up in list but didn't work either

EDIT2*: I went in to BIOS and changed that setting to achi and the one under as type sata then the driver is showing up when the hide box is ticked but when I click next I get:

To continue installation use the load driver option to install 32bit and signed 64bit drivers. Installing an unsigned 64bit device driver is jot supported and might result in an unusable Windows instalation.
 
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If you're installing the 64 bit version of W7, then use the 64 bit AHCI driver. It was designed for use by your motherboard and W7 64 bit.

If you're using W7 32 bit, then download the 32 bit AHCI driver instead.
 
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