Installed new hard drive and cannot install windows

[calanne]

Hello,
I replaced the hard drive in my Lenovo ThinkPad R60e from an Hitachi 70GB 5400RPM SATA drive to a brand new Hitachi 750GB 7200RPM SATA drive and cannot get windows to install. It appears in the BIOS and I have run the HD Diagnostics tool with success. After setting Config in BIOS from ACHI to Compatibility mode, I was able to use my Win7 boot recovery disk to get to a cmd prompt and format the new drive, NTFS. Win 7 does not see the drive. Ran the WinXP setup and it blue screened on restart. When I tried to run the install again, WinXP only sees the 3200MB FAT Partition and cannot even see the NTFS Partition. Lenovo had a firmware update bootable CD which I tried and it does not have any firmware for the new drive. When I tried to drill down to the Win7 setup.exe file it says that the system does not have the installed subset to perform the requested action. I'm certain this is some kind of driver problem but I'm not sure where to go next.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Did you actually update your bios? Version 2.2 has this listed as an update in the bios.

Summary of changes

Version 7EETD0WW (2.20)

(New) Supports Microsoft Windows 7. (addition)
(Fix) The boot sequence is different from the expected one in case of Wake on LAN(WOL).
(Fix) The computer may hang while formatting CardBus ATA drive on Windows Vista 64-bit SP1.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS002990

 

[calanne]

Yes - I am actually already running this version.

 

[calanne]

Update - I was able to partition off 80GB, format and successfully install Win2K - but in disk mgmt there is only 48GB left unallocated. Was able to format the 48GB NTFS, but where the heck is the rest of the space? UGH

 

[foscooter]

Does your laptop support 48-bit LBA for HDD over 128GB? That could be your problem.

How old is it? 5 years? There is your answer.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Does your laptop support 48-bit LBA for HDD over 128GB? That could be your problem.

How old is it? 5 years? There is your answer.

I was thinking of that, but then why put out a bios update for windows 7 if you can't use drives larger than 128gig? Also, drives were larger than 128gig five years ago. Heck, XP with SP1 can handle large drives.

@OP, unfortunately though, this seems to be the case.

 

[Jim_L9]

The drive in the link below is marketed to your laptop and is over 128 GB:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/320GB-Laptop-Hard-Drive-IBM-Lenovo-thinkPad-R60-R61-60e-/380189691910#vi-desc

 

[Jim_L9]

According to the hardware manual for the R60e it supports larger drives:

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/42x3749_02.pdf

 

[calanne]

Geez - never thought of that - this unit is coming up on 5 years but Jim is right about the manual. I'm still thinking its a driver or something with the SATA config in the BIOS. Really appreciate all the info - thanks.

 

[foscooter]

Heck, XP with SP1 can handle large drives.

FYI: It's the motherboard that HAS to support large drives, regardless of the OS.

I'm still thinking its a driver or something with the SATA config in the BIOS.

In the BIOS, are the SATA ports set to ACHI, not IDE? May not matter, there are IDE drives over 128GB....;(

 

[calanne]

SATA set to IDE, but after installing XP Pro I now see the remaining drive space in disk mgmt. I'm now wondering if I go ahead and install Win7, hack the registry key to support ACHI, install the Intel Storage matrix drivers & change the BIOS back to ACHI will everything finally be back to normal or should I just leave it be???

 

[foscooter]

Nah, set the SATA ports to ACHI, and install Windows 7.

But if it fails again, do it your way.

At least you know it supports large drives now.

ACHI will be better/faster than IDE.

 

[calanne]

Sweet! So, installed Win7, hacked the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci, set Start to 0 and changed the BIOS back to AHCI and on restart, Win7 installed the SATA controller and a final reboot worked. Ahhhh.
Thanks everyone!!! )

 

[calanne]

Best answer selected by calanne.