Windows 7: Clean Install of Win7 doesnt find HD Drivers

Hello,

This is my first thread here...so be gentle. I am not entirely inexperienced in building PCs (i've built 2: 1 mid-range and 1 gaming/workstation), but i have NEVER had this many issues with either the XP or Vista machines that I built.

Ok, i built a "whitebox" for a friend at work and they wanted to windows 7 64bit. So, i built the machine and have been trying to figure out how to get it to recognize the HD for the past 4 hours... mainly thanks to Samsung for making impossible to find drivers on their website for the Spinpoint F1 HD102UJ 1TB hard drive and i am also having problems finding drivers from the Gigabyte website... Anyway, suggestions? I gone through all the suggestions about checking the BIOS for RAID settings, but there is only 1 drive in this machine.

Furthermore, after trying to find the drivers online for about 2 hours...i ended up reformatting the drive from the utility disk that samsung had on their website....

The specs are:
Gigabyte GA-MA78LM-S2H (AM3/DDR2)OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W
AMD Athalon II x2 250 Regor
4g OCZ Reaper DDR2-800
LG DVD+/-RW (SATAII)
Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD102UJ 1TB


Thanks for the help!!

Hi thanotosq
I promise to be gentle
Try updating your chipset and sata/raid drivers.GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver - GA-MA78LM-S2H (rev. 1.0)

EDIT - Just to clarify, download both of these from the link.
Chipset / VGA / SATA RAID
and
SATA RAID

So just to clarify, what happens when you start the computer? Also, are you sure all the cables are completely connected, like the S-ATA and the power one. In BIOS, does the disk just not show or show as unusable etc.?

If you can get to the Custom drives map screen in the booted installer, then you can put the SATA controller drivers in.

Make sure you have the latest BIOS update and all settings are correct for SATA controllers.

TimStitt- Thanks man, i'll give that a shot.

Coolness- Thanks for the reply. The drive does show up in the BIOS. I get through the initial stages of the setup and i get to the part where you select the drive to load the OS on and there is nothing there. I tried to make a disk with the drivers on the website above. I think that i am going to try to put it on a thumb drive and load it that way. I have not reflash the BIOS version (i have rev. 1.0 and there is a newer version)

gregrocker- Thanks for the reply! I think that the above addresses your suggestion. This weekend was very busy so i was unable to try the SATA driver update.


I will update this thread tonight about what happens.

I would def Update the BIOS, then if necessary unzip the SATA controller driver on a flash stick and insert into installer at Custom Drives screen.

I have downloaded the driver update and am currently unable to get Windows 7 to recognize it at the point where i am supposed to "select drivers to be installed"...WTF?

I have never updated BIOS before, so.... there is some hesitation for me in that regard.

Furthermore, i dont have an extra floppy drive or any floppy disks...only hd's, dvd, and flash drives...

Suggestions?

You said the HD is not showing up in the BIOS. If so, then you need to check the connections at all ends, change the ribbon cable, make sure the jumpers are set correctly to Master with no other drives on cable. The HD needs to register in BIOS before installer can even be used.

You also said you checked the BIOS for SATA settings. Which was the setting: AHCI, IDE or RAID?

See if you can extract the drivers to their own folder and install them manually.
The pics show the SATA driver installation.

• Unzip the downloaded drivers using WinRAR or your favourite compression software.
• Open Device Manager
• Install Manually per the screen prints.

Just a thought,
You are using the on-board SATA, not an add-in card?
Is it enabled in the bios?