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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Close is good and you will prevail in the end.

In the bios under Hard Disk Boot Priority do you see the new drive? If you don't, it doesn't matter what driver you try to install, do back flips, spin around three times or run around the house like a madman... etc. You will not see the drive when installing Win7. Correct me if I'm wrong but the BIOS needs to see the drive first.

aford10 did mentioned to make sure that you set the boot priority after starting from scratch.

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

I have never had to use any RAID or SATA drives with any of the Win7 installs that I have done. Are you using a genuine Win7 disk? I actually downloaded the manual for your MB and it's Win7 ready. XP and Vista is a different story and required the SATA/RAID drivers during the install process.
 
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No my drives are not showing in BIOS.. I got it to recognise an old IDE drive by change those settings in the BIOS but it just kept trying to boot Windows me and restarting then.

This is so strange..I think this all happened when I pluged the hard drive in when the pc was on..then it just turned off and wouldn't turn back on but I left it for a while and it came back on then , and its like its forgot what sata is ..iv never seen anything like this.

I'm starting to think the answer lies within the BIOS , and that is somthing I know little about only what I have learned here. Brick wall :s
 
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The pc I built is one I built my self last year.
This is my motherboard http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3397&dl=1#bios

The hdd I have is Hitachi 1tb deskstar c series

I was wondering could the on board sata controller shorted out when I connected the hard drive while pc was still on (silly mistake)

Maybe if I tried yard tried in a other computer but I don't trouble know anyone with a desktop.. only laptops
 
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G
Anyways do the following.

Get or make a boot disk with the format command or partition tools on. Hiron boot cd if you got it would be a good one use. Now boot up with the boot disk (if you got Hiron boot cd use the disk partition software).
Click to expand...


I didn't really understand this, is it something you download? Or is it on the pc already?
 
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Not sure to be honest, it might or it might not. All you can do is try. I usually use a working PC/Laptop to do any HD formating with either a USB HD adapter or HD docking station. If you don't have either of them you could use the poor man method by using a working PC, remove the side panel, connect the the SATA cable to the MB (if it has an open port and extra power connection) and format while in Windows.

You can always take your HD to a local computer shop to have them do it for you. Might not be a bad Idea at this point but it's up to you. They could also check to see if the HD is defective, maybe that's the issue and it does happen.
 
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IS the bios still set for AHCI? If so, switch back to IDE and then try to see if you can see the drive in the Bios. I had a similar problem with installing win7. It turned out that I needed to click on the volume and format it before it would load 7 onto that drive.
 
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I got a second hand desktop yesterday but I don't see any sata connectors on the mb

If I bought a new motherboard the problem still might not fixed..

Is there different types of sata cables? For new and older drives ?
 
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