Hello DPeterson, welcome to Seven Forums!
If you're using the old obsolete with Windows 7 Partition Magic program to do anything, I'm sure this is causing the issues you're having, the only way to correct the mess this program creates is to use Windows diskpart to run a clean all from PC boot using the tutorial Greg listed.
SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
DISKPART : At PC Startup
Ok - I did run that. I get through all of the instructions fine right up until the 'format' command which doesn't seem to be a valid command for this program. Whenever I type format, it just spits back a long list of valid commads to use and format is not one of them.
Since I tried to format with the Partition software (Partiton Magic and then GParted) I have since wiped off my install of Vista from this drive so I can not try again to install from the disk while Vista is operating.
I am now trying to load XP pro and do the install from within XP. But first I have to load my Win 98 OS so that my XP pro Upgrade CD will install, then I have to load the drivers for XP that allow for WPA-2 encryption so that I can connect to my wireless network, then I have to load the drivers for my wireless netowrk adapter to be able to connect to the ineternet, then I have to download and install the XP Service Pack 3 so that it is compatible with an upgrade to Win 7. Sounds like a fun Saturday afternoon planned - all to probably and ultimately fail when I try to do the upgrade. Just like when I tried doing it while Vista was installed.
By the way - Win98, WinXP, WinVISTA ALL had no problems detecting the presence of my hard drive. WTF Win7??? Why is this happening to me and WHY AM I STILL TRYING TO FIX THIS? It should be obvious to me that this SCSI hard drive configuration is just not meant to have Win7 loaded on it.
Other people who have had this problem have solved it by running diskpart an then formatting the disk but when I run diskpart it doesn't allow me to format and if I run diskpart from a scenario in which I boot directly from the Win7 DVD and go to Repair > then Command Prompt, diskpart does not list my hard drive at all. The only way I can run diskpart is by reconnecting my win2003 hard drive, boot to that, go to a command prompt - then diskpart finds the drives (but the format command is not working for me)
Formatting erases nothing. You need to overwrite possibly infected or corrupt code with zeroes to get the cleanest possible slate.
If you can't Wipe with Diskpart from the installer then use free Partition Wizard bootable CD which is the best partitioning tool for Win7. Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software - Partition Wizard Online
On Disk tab, select Wipe then appply one set of zeroes.
SCSI= System Can't See It
just a guess, but possibly windows 7 just doesn't recognize some SCSI drives without loading a driver for it before the install.
Well - that didn't work. I was unable to get a working copy of XP's SP1,2,3. I downloadedthem to a different computer and after copying them to CD, the files were corrupt. And right from the Microsoft website no less.
So I decied to reinstall VISTA Ultimate with SP2. Took a while but it's up and running now.
Then I tried to run the Win7 install DVD from within the VISTA environment and when I got to the screen asking to UPGRADE or CUSTOM, I chose upgrade. It went to a screen to check for compatibility and was working for a while until finally it came up with this error:
The following issues are preventing Windows from upgrading. Cancel the upgrade, complete each task and then restart the upgrade.
Install upgraded drivers for the following devices: Open COntrol Panel and search for 'update device drivers'
-Storage Controller: Compaq 64-bit/66MHz Wide Ultra3 SCSI Adapter
CLOSE
I went to control panel and had windows do the online seach and it returns the message:
The Best Driver for your device is already installed
Windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date
Compaq 64-bit/66MHz Wide Ultra3 SCSI Adapter
That's where the story ends. I've been here before and doing the "driver update" as suggested does not fix the problem. Any sugestions?
Last edited by DPeterson; 09 Jan 2011 at 12:00. Reason: addon
This confirms that the Storage driver is not in the Win7 DVD, which apparently cannot use the Vista driver.
A quick Google search turns up no drivers newer than for XP.
Have you tried 32 bit boot clean install? Drivers are a little easier to come by.
that's what I have been doing - 32-bit.
Do you think that I need to be running the 64-bit since this controller says 64bit in the description?
I assumed that this older 2003 Server was 32 bit and that the 64 bit Win7 would not be compatible becasue the machine doesn't meet the minumum RAM requirements of 2GB (it only has 1 GB). That's why I have been trying to install the 32 bit Win7 this whole time.
Windows 7 has dropped a lot of older drivers because Microsoft does not support the older hardware or the hardware vendor no longer supports the hardware. This is why Vista or XP or other older OS’s work.
Here is what you can do to completely figure out these issues.
Load Windows Server 2008 R2 on this machine if it works then you will know for sure that it is a driver issue and nothing else. Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 are the same in almost every way. The major difference is the driver set. Servers typically have many different controller cards so server supports many different cards, the workstation versions don’t have to support many controllers so Microsoft doesn’t include the drivers. If Windows Server 2008 R2 works then all we need to do is find out which driver Server is using and then copy it to a USB drive or such and then add it to your Windows 7 install. Problem solved. -WS
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