Cannot install Windows on IDE HDD

Before you go to some expense you should give diagnostics a shot for your brand drive. 7 Free Hard Drive Testing Software Tools

yp89CCp said:

320 gb @ $95 sounds good to me

A year or so ago that same drive was about $40 or less.

It might be a bit late now but did you create the partition using Windows 7 setup?
Is there an active partition on the drive?

If you havn't already try making the drive the first bootable device in BIOS and use the one time boot key to boot Windows setup and create the partitions using Windows 7 setup so it creates the 100mb system reserve partition.

Yes, I have created partitions using Windows 7 setup wizard. ATM there are no active partitions(I think).

I have tryed.

Maybe setting the partition as active using Diskpart may help although using Setup to create the partitions including the System Reserve should eliminate the need to do this manually.

It does sound like your tried just about everything and without getting it front of me and having a play I too am unsure what else to try.

I would test the drive using the Manafacturers diagnostic tools from the link Britton provided or the Manafacturers website.

Were you able to try the HDD diagnostics?

I have a w7 install humming along on a IDE drive as well.

I was not able to run that diagnostics tool. The HDD was not recognised. Tryed with other hdd, and Windows has installed there.
I know that the hdd is screwed up, we'll see if can find some other to buy.

Ahh well, sorry Boshko, it was beginning to look like the drive was bad.

Of course you could get a new board with SATA and a CPU and.... Well you know how that goes.

Well, that was old hdd and we can't do nothing... :)

Yes, I know that things.

Thanks for helping again.

StalkeR

You're very welcome my friend.