Booting OS Installer

[kecandeta]

I didn't know whether to post this here or in another sub-forum, so I'm trying both. I apologize and bare with me.

A plethora of problems tonight.

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Dark Knight
RAM: OCZ Platinum 6GB
PSU: Corsair 750tx
GPU: HIS HD4890
HDD: WD Caviar Black 640gb
DVD: LG 22x

I don't know if you'll need these, seeing as how the problem has now gone from hardware to software. Then again, it could still be a hardware issue.

After getting my monitor to work, I went through the BIOS and changed the settings so the computer would boot off of a USB Flash Drive. The problem is that it won't boot from the drive. Now, I checked and checked and checked to see if, for whatever reason, the settings slid back into their defaults. Nope. It just isn't booting from the drive. It is recognizing it; just not booting off of it.

That said, what do I do?

(Sidenote: Both my Hard Drive and DVD-ROM are showing up as IDE Masters, which confuses me because my Hard Drive isn't connected as an IDE, but SATA. When I switch my settings in the BIOS to recognize SATA drives, it recognizes the DVD ROM as a SATA drive and not the Hard Drive. Is it supposed to do that?

If not, that's okay, but I'm certain I read somewhere that one of your drives is the Master and the other is the Slave. Most places say the common setup pits the DVD-ROM as the Master and the Hard Drive as the Slave. Perfectly fine. But, how in the hell do I get to that point?

The reason why I put this in here is because if for some reason the computer is recognizing the hard drive correctly and that's causing my Flash Drive to not boot, that'd be a neat little fix that I wouldn't have guessed otherwise.

Again, thanks a ton for all the help, guys. Bare with the newb.)

 

[Scotteq]

The only reason it should be going to your hard drives is if it doesnt' find any bootable media. Therefore I'll bet you didn't properly mount the .iso on your flash drive.


I grabbed some instructions for you:

This operation assumes your machine can boot from a USB enabled device.

Check your BIOS to make sure. You also MUST have a DVD copy of Vista to install the source files from the DVD to a USB flash drive:

1. Insert your USB flash drive and enter the following commands:
(please note this list assumes that your USB flash drive will be seen as disk 1. To confirm that it is type "list disk" after you've entered the DISKPART command) Otherwise you may wipe a different drive (such as your hard disk drive!)

2. Type:

diskpart
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32
assign
exit
At this point your USB drive is formatted. DO NOT format the drive from within Windows. You MUST have a DVD copy of Vista to copy the source files from.

The final preparation step is to copy the installation files to your flash drive, this can be done by running the following command:

(Please note D: is the drive letter for the source files and E: is the drive letter for your flash drive, if they are different on your system you need to change them accordingly).

Exit DISKPART. Type:

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

Thats it, configure usb device as primary boot device in your bios and install.

 

[kecandeta]

I switched the settings in BIOS. Now, when it proceeds past the title screen, it say something along the lines of "Veryifing DMI devices" or something, then instead of usually saying Booting from DVD/CD ROM or whatever, it says nothing. It just... sits. The longest I've sat and waited for was about 15 minutes.

EDIT: I used these instructions: http://www.electronicpulp.net/2009/01/14/how-to-install-windows-7-with-a-usb-flash-drive/

 

[kecandeta]

When I format the flash drive, there's still a very tiny portion used up. Is that something I need to try getting rid of before making it bootable?