Unable to get fresh install of windows 7 on new SSD

[johnearle99]

Yesterday I attempted to install a few new components in my computer and have been having issues installing windows

New components
Asus M5A97 Mobo
AMD Phenom X4 965 3.4 Ghtz
Samsung 830 128gig SSD

In the system I have my previous working
Samsung DVD drive
500v power supply
Radeon HD 6850 graphics card

I do not currently have my 1tb Samsung drive connected

I have the SSD hooked up in the first 6b/s SATA port and the DvD drive in port 2.
BIOS finds the hard drive and the setting in BIOS are ACHI

When I get to the windows setup screen where it asks me to pick the drive to install windows on I choose the SSD which shows 120g unallocated space,

At this point I get a Windows cannot create partition error.
I have gone into Diskpart and created the partition and set it to active and again tried to reinstall and get the same message

I have followed some Windows forums post (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html) regarding a clean install on SSD which says to create a NTFS format partition in Diskpart but when I attempt to format the SSD in Diskpart I receive an I/O device error.

At one point I actually got passed the initial step in setup and go to expaning files where it failed with the message unable to install files. Since then it has reverted back to the unable to create partition error.

I also tried doing the installation using the UEFI boot option in BIOS and when I create the new partitions (as an article I read was saying it should) The 3 partitions were created but when I selected the partition to put windows on I received the unable to create partition error.

I have a burned windows 7 disc I made using ISOBurner, a USB stick to use for install, and have even tried a previous Vista disk retail (not burned) to see if it was perhaps the installation.

I have also hooked up my previous Samsung 1tb HDD to see what happens if I were to try to boot from it, I have seen 2 outcomes to doing this.

The first is Disk Read Error press cntrl alt del to reset and the second (which I only had happen once) the windows login screen came up, then flashed blue and reset the pc.

I built a PC for my brother in law 3 weeks aho using an Asus mobo with the same BIOS screen, that install I had a fresh HDD and a SSD and it allowed me to install windows without a problem to his SSD (again from a burned ISO disk). I did not have to do anything out of the ordinary.

This has been really frustrating and at this point I am not sure if there is just something wrong with the Mobo or I am missing a tiny step in the process, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[johnearle99]

Best answer selected by johnearle99.

 

[ed40]

I recently had the same set of malfunctions, refusals by Microsoft Win7 when I tried to install onto a brand new Samsung 840 EVO SSD into a Dell Dimension box. The Microsoft Win7 installer failed to even detect the drive.

With no changes to any hardware, BIOS, I simply rebooted into KNOPPIX Linux on a USB memstick. Linux saw the SSD immediately, allowed me to partition it, format a Linux partition, format an NTFS partition.

That test demonstrates the following set of conditions:

1. The SSD disk was working perfectly.
2. The disk controller on the Dell Dimension mainboard was working perfectly.
3. The SATA logic cable connected from the mainboard to the SSD was working perfectly.
4. The BIOS in the Dell was working perfectly.
5. The USB memstick with KNOPPIX was working perfectly.

That leaves only one variable in this entire exercise.

Was Microsoft Win7 installer working perfectly?

And we pay real money for Microsoft DVDs.

But Linux is FREE as in beer.


* even better answer by Ed40