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Windows Installer Can't See 74GB Raptor HDD
I am unable to install windows on my 74GB Western Digital Raptor hard drive.
Windows 7 has successfully installed on my other SATA HDD, a 1TB WD drive that I want to use for storage and not for my OS. The raptor is seen in the BIOS, and is recognized and works perfectly fine once Windows is running on my storage drive.
I have tried everything I can think of, but the raptor just wont show up as one of options to point the windows installer to. There are two types of SATA ports on my motherboard. The regular SATA ports are controlled by ICH9R and the GSATA ports are controlled by GIGABYTE SATA2. I've obviously tried plugging the drive into both, and neither works. I have updated drivers for both of these controllers on an external drive, and every time I run the windows installer and get to the screen where I select a drive to install to, I load both of these drivers, but it never allows the Raptor to appear as an option.
I have attempted to install to the raptor both while running windows on the storage drive, as well as booting directly from the DVD boot disc I burned. I have tried installing with the storage drive unplugged from my motherboard, and with it plugged in.
I have tried a bunch of different HDD BIOS configs. The raptor is always there in the BIOS, but it just refuses to be a windows install option. Just today I systematically went through and tried all 8 permutations of the following BIOS settings with the raptor plugged into the first ("0") SATA plug on the motherboard, with the storage drive not plugged in.
SATA RAID/AHCI Mode: (AHCI or Disabled)
Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode (AHCI or IDE)
Sata 0-3 Native Mode (Enabled or Disabled)
A number of these configurations I have tried with the raptor plugged into the gigabyte controlled GSATA ports, without any luck.
I have ran windows update, and when trying to install when windows is already running on the storage drive, I allow the 'install updates' to run.
I just can't think of anything else to try, and have no idea why this won't work. As I said at the start, the HDD is obviously operational, I run programs off it no problem when windows is running on the storage drive. Both the raptor and storage drive connect via the same interface (SATA). I'm just dumbfounded about this. If anybody has ANY ideas please let me know. My full system specs are in my profile. TIA.