Trouble Installing Windows 7 (No HD Detected)

Hi everyone,

So I downloaded the Windows 7 RC (both 32 bit and 64 bit, just in case) and went to install it. The OS is being installed on a brand new system that has not had any other operating systems on it before. However, after accepting the license agreement and choosing "Custom" (for a new installation as opposed to an upgrade), the thing refuses to show my hard drive in the "Where do you want to install Windows?" menu.

I'm pretty sure neither my hard drive nor the motherboard is defective (although I could be wrong, since I'm fairly new at this), since the system turns on and the BIOS screens all look fine, and the hard drive shows up correctly in the BIOS. On top of that, when I click "Load Driver" and then "Browse", there is an entry called "Local Disk (C:)" that I think is probably referring to the hard drive, and when I try to expand the little "+" thing next to it it says I need to format the drive before I can use it and whether I would like to do so, but when I click "Format Disk", it gives me a big error like "Windows can't format C, check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, make sure that the disk is not read-only, and then try again. For more information, search Help for read-only files and how to change them.".

I've tried quite a few things so far, like upgrading the BIOS, getting Vista drivers for SATA controllers from Gigabyte and Intel (since neither of them provide Windows 7 drivers to my knowledge), trying with a couple different BIOS settings, and plugging my Hard Drive and optical drive into different SATA controllers (the motherboard has a GSATA2 controller with 2 purple slots and a ICH10R controller with 6 orange slots). However, it seems that nothing will get it to work, and I was wondering if anyone here knew anything about this and could give me a few more ideas.

Thanks.


My system components are as follows:
--Intel Core 2 Quad 2.33GHz Q8200
--Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Motherboard
--2x2Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2-SDRAM
--Seagate Barracuda SATA Hard Drive (ST3500641AS-RK); 500Gb capacity, 7200 rpm, 3.0Gb/s SATA, 16Mb cache, 3.5" internal.

Other components that are proabably irrelevent but that I'll put here just in case:
--EVGA GeForce GTS250 Gfx Card
--LITE-ON 24x DVD/CD Writer (SATA interface)
--CoolerMaster PSU and Case


Also I'm kinda new here and I couldn't figure out if I should have post this under "Installation & Setup" (which is what I'm doing) or under "Drivers" (which is what the problem seems to be), so sorry if I'm doin it wrong please don't hate >_<.

I had this issues a while back with my first install and I had to set the hard drive to run in IDE mode as opposed to AHCI mode in the bios. Strangely it was a gigabyte motherboard aswell, it installs fine now tho either way.

treezzzzz said:

Hi everyone,

So I downloaded the Windows 7 RC (both 32 bit and 64 bit, just in case) and went to install it. The OS is being installed on a brand new system that has not had any other operating systems on it before. However, after accepting the license agreement and choosing "Custom" (for a new installation as opposed to an upgrade), the thing refuses to show my hard drive in the "Where do you want to install Windows?" menu.

I'm pretty sure neither my hard drive nor the motherboard is defective (although I could be wrong, since I'm fairly new at this), since the system turns on and the BIOS screens all look fine, and the hard drive shows up correctly in the BIOS. On top of that, when I click "Load Driver" and then "Browse", there is an entry called "Local Disk (C:)" that I think is probably referring to the hard drive, and when I try to expand the little "+" thing next to it it says I need to format the drive before I can use it and whether I would like to do so, but when I click "Format Disk", it gives me a big error like "Windows can't format C, check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, make sure that the disk is not read-only, and then try again. For more information, search Help for read-only files and how to change them.".

I've tried quite a few things so far, like upgrading the BIOS, getting Vista drivers for SATA controllers from Gigabyte and Intel (since neither of them provide Windows 7 drivers to my knowledge), trying with a couple different BIOS settings, and plugging my Hard Drive and optical drive into different SATA controllers (the motherboard has a GSATA2 controller with 2 purple slots and a ICH10R controller with 6 orange slots). However, it seems that nothing will get it to work, and I was wondering if anyone here knew anything about this and could give me a few more ideas.

Thanks.


My system components are as follows:
--Intel Core 2 Quad 2.33GHz Q8200
--Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Motherboard
--2x2Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2-SDRAM
--Seagate Barracuda SATA Hard Drive (ST3500641AS-RK); 500Gb capacity, 7200 rpm, 3.0Gb/s SATA, 16Mb cache, 3.5" internal.

Other components that are proabably irrelevent but that I'll put here just in case:
--EVGA GeForce GTS250 Gfx Card
--LITE-ON 24x DVD/CD Writer (SATA interface)
--CoolerMaster PSU and Case


Also I'm kinda new here and I couldn't figure out if I should have post this under "Installation & Setup" (which is what I'm doing) or under "Drivers" (which is what the problem seems to be), so sorry if I'm doin it wrong please don't hate >_<.

Hi and welcome to sevenforums
Thats a great first post it gives us the info what you have tried and what results were.

to Basics the usuals where did you get the ISO's, how did you burn them. Have you tried installing to different hard drives. do you have another computer that you could format the HD on?

From the fact that It boots into bios that the mobo and ram are ok. HD's are probably ok. that leaves the image, dvd media dvd drive, or some setting in bios.

I know this isnt much but I hope it points you in the right direction.

Ken

edit: if no previous OS why did the install ask you if you wanted to upgrade?

Hedrush said:

I had this issues a while back with my first install and I had to set the hard drive to run in IDE mode as opposed to AHCI mode in the bios. Strangely it was a gigabyte motherboard aswell, it installs fine now tho either way.

Did you have to download and/or install some special drivers when you installed windows 7, or did you already have SATA drivers from a previous operating system?

I have the purple slots on my motherboard configured to IDE also, but when the hard drive was plugged into them it wasn't working.

zigzag3143 said:

Hi and welcome to sevenforums
Thats a great first post it gives us the info what you have tried and what results were.

to Basics the usuals where did you get the ISO's, how did you burn them. Have you tried installing to different hard drives. do you have another computer that you could format the HD on?

From the fact that It boots into bios that the mobo and ram are ok. HD's are probably ok. that leaves the image, dvd media dvd drive, or some setting in bios.

I know this isnt much but I hope it points you in the right direction.

Ken

edit: if no previous OS why did the install ask you if you wanted to upgrade?

The disk images are from Microsoft's website, I burned them with an internal DVD reader and the software that came with my computer (other computer, of course; the one I'm using right now).

My other computer doesn't have SATA ports, so I'm not sure how I would attach my new hard drive to it.

I'm not sure why it asks if I wanna upgrade; maybe it's lazy just always asks you that question.

I just built a machine less than 2 weeks ago with the same mobo. It's recommended to plug your hard drive into the 1st of the orange/yellow SATA ports controlled by the Intel controller on the southbridge.

I had no issues installing when connected to either the Intel or the Gigabyte sata ports. I'm on Rev 1.1 of the mobo and it came with the latest BIOS already installed (F9).

I installed using both IDE and AHCI mode to test for any differences and both installed just fine.

treezzzzz said:

Did you have to download and/or install some special drivers when you installed windows 7, or did you already have SATA drivers from a previous operating system?

I have the purple slots on my motherboard configured to IDE also, but when the hard drive was plugged into them it wasn't working.

When it was running in IDE mode it didnt require any pre install driver, so it installed fine.

Were as, when I installed while it was running in AHCI mode I installed the pre install SATA driver from gigabyte.

Now when I do a fresh install, I dont require any pre install drivers it all installs fine.

I've installed W7 on machines with motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte, ZOTAC, Shuttle, MSI and DFI. They all had quite modern nVidia or Intel chipsets. All but one ASUS had AHCI enabled for SATA. None required any special driver installation or preparation, other than enabling AHCI in the BIOS. In all but the one ASUS case, the initial installation of W7 was done with AHCI enabled. They all worked properly with AHCI and presented no problems.

Bye.