Windows 7 install doesn't recognise my hard drive

Ok i'll let it run then, just wanted to check i wasn't waiting for no reason, thanks.

DocBrown, it's not a new board, it's left over from when i upgraded, i'm using some new and some old bits so i suppose i can't rule out the port being bad. It does show the hd in the bios though so maybe it's ok? I've also tried the drive in all but one or two ports and same thing. Frustrating huh? This is what i've been thinking for days, it's driving me mad!!

My son's only four so it's not too much of a stress but every time i let him on the main PC something gets deleted or moved. There were all these left over parts and i thought i know i'll make him his own PC and he can go mad. I'm starting to wish i'd not bothered but don't want it to beat me now lol.

It is showing now but a message on the bottom of the screen says@

Windows can't be installed to this disk. This computers hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

I guess it's because i have the USB dvd drive listed as the primary boot option, hard drive is the second option though, will this be ok once the clean up is finished?

DaveG said:

It is showing now but a message on the bottom of the screen says@

Windows can't be installed to this disk. This computers hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

I guess it's because i have the USB dvd drive listed as the primary boot option, hard drive is the second option though, will this be ok once the clean up is finished?

Do you format the Hd NTFS?

originally yeah i did, when it was connected to my main PC. It was the default option.

DocBrown said:

There is a group of Guru's here that won't give up helping until we get 99.997% success

We call it Trial & Error science experiments So here's to another wild ride!

Hi Doc

Is this Trial & Error?

YouTube - Blowing up an Old PC with Tannerite
YouTube - blow up a pc

Me too!!

The clean up is complete and i'm just formatting the partition, 12% at the moment.

I thought i'd refresh on the install windows screen while I was waiting and the hard drive isn't listed anymore? I'm still hopeful, I don't think i've said it but I appreciate the help, thank you :)

Where did you get Win7? Have you used this DVD to successfully install before?

Did you burn the DVD yourself? Try burning another using ImgBurn at 4x speed.

Try setting HD as first device to boot in BIOS setup. Then boot the DVD drive using one-time BIOS boot menu key.

Use Step 2.2 in tutorial posted in theog's post #5 to format after running Diskpart Clean again. Marking partition Active gives it an edge at being detected.

Your external DVD drive is suspect until another method is attempted. If you have a USB flash stick: extract DVD ISO with ImgBurn, install UltraISO trial version, on File tab Open ISO, on Bootable tab Write Disk Image, Format, Write. Boot via BIOS Boot Menu under USB or HD.

It's a retail upgrade copy of W7, i used it on my main PC with no issues. I've been told elsewhere that there was no need to install my original copy of Vista first as I was having the same issue with that, I don't know if that was good advice or not?

I'm going to finish the steps that Theog listed and then call it a night, i've got work tomorrow and it's getting late but thanks and i'll try your advice tomorrow if it's still not working.

My USB flash drive is 4gb is that enough storage?