Hard drive detected in Bios but not during Windows 7 instalation

[susa7]

I have an Asus laptop and I am trying to do a clean install of Windows 7. My Seagate hdd is detected in the Bios. But during the Windows 7 installation, the part where I supposed to select which hd/partitioned to install Windows 7 on, my Seagate hdd is not listed. Is my hdd dead?

 

[bucknutty]

Chances are the laptop uses a new or special sata control that windows 7 does not know. Look on the asus driver down load section for a sata boot driver or an f5 driver for your particular model laptop. In the win7 install menu where you would select your hard drive or partition you have to hit add driver. From here you need to install the driver from a usb drive.

Check out this link, it explains what you need to do with pictures.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/68505-sata-driver-load-windows-7-vista-setup.html

 

[susa7]

thanks. i've found the download page for my laptop, but i can not find which driver i needed. can you point me to the right driver? http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=N61Jq&p=3&s=217

 

[bucknutty]

After looking at the specs of laptop the Asus n61jq has the intel HM55 chipset and a i3/i5. Those are very common and should not need a special driver to install windows.
Is this the same drive that was always in it, or is this a new or different hdd? Some times if the hdd was formated or partitioned in a funny way windows will not access it.

 

[susa7]

my asus is actually an i7 and yes thats the same hdd that was always in it.

i tried putting the hd in an external case and connected to my desktop. it showed up as a "system reserved" drive in "my computer". it would freeze everytime i tried to right click and format it.

 

[fantastik250]

Have you enabled ACHI in the BIOS? You should do that before installing windows 7.

 

[smorizio]

if there still using ide drives (not sata) then there should be a jumper on the drive to make it a master. if it a sata drive check that the bios is in achi mode not ide or raid.

 

[bucknutty]

The fact that the desk top would freeze when plugged into USB makes me think the HD might be bad.

Some times when you plug a bootable HD into a working windows system windows marks it as "offline" once it is marked offline windows will not use it "see it" when doing a clean install.

Put the drive back in your external encloser plug it into your desktop then go
Control Panel\Administrative Tools\computer managment\storage\diskmangmant.

in there find your external drive. There may be 2 or 3 partions on it but they should all be marked offline with no drive letter. Right click and hit online. Then delete all the partions on the external drive. Carefull not to mess with the partitions of the actual desktops hdd.

Now the laptop/external drive should be empty with no partion. Plug it into the laptop and try a clean install again.

 

[Jdogg_83]

I had this issue this weekend when trying to do a fresh windows 7 install on my desktop and thought I'd share my solution in case any one hits this.

I had previously used the drive as a data drive and decided to make it my main drive. I had detached all other drives from the system and windows would simply say that it couldn't find any drive to install to.

I checked in the BIOS and the drive was found. Changing from IDE to ACHI didn't make any difference.
Even more oddly, if I tried to install a RAID driver from the windows 7 installer, I could see the hard drive in the list of locations to find the driver on!

The fix for me was to reformat the drive. It was already ntfs, and after reformatting to ntfs again, windows 7 found it with no problem. I did my reformat by live booting into Kubuntu 12.04 and using the partition editor in there to do the reformat.

Hope this saves someone else a few hours of their life.

 

[cyberwolff]

To remove XP and install Win 7 you cannot upgrade.

For a "clean" Install put you DVD in the drive and reboot directly to the DVD bypassing XP loading.

On Compaq 6000 notebook for instance hold down ESC key as you boot up. Message asking if you want to boot from DVD press any key.

Just press space bar and wait.

Other computers may require pressing another key or opening to BIOS to select boot order. Check with mfr of your PC.

Cyberwolff

 

[haris022]

Try out the following methods
1) Update or install storage controller driver.
2) Update the driver for your PC's chip set.