No Drives Found in W7 install, trying clean install on HP DV4 1228CA

Hi all, I'd appreciate any help I can get on this, my laptop hdd died a few days ago and I've been pulling my hair out trying to install w7 on a brand new HDD i bought.

Specs:

HP Pavilion DV4 1228CA
Systemboard ID 30FB
AMD Turion X2 Dual Core Mobile RM 72
4Gigs of RAM DDR2
BIos F55
Factory Install, VISTA


New HDD I'm trying to install: Seagate Momentus 7200.4, 500gb

Replacing: Fujitsu250gb MHZ2250BH G2



Process:
- I boot into Windows Installation and select language.
- Shift + F10 - Diskpart - List Disk = NO FIXED DISKS FOUND
(I can see the new drive when I attach it to my desktop pc via USB enclosure, so I know it's not faulty.)

- Where do you want to install windows? - Load Drivers - I found the AHCI SATA driver here: Software & Driver Downloads HP Pavilion dv4-1228ca Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (Canada - English)

and used the W7 86x version on my USB key. It seems to load fine, but the result is still: "No Drives Found"

I don't know where else to look for the appropriate drivers. Seagate does not provide any and there are no other drivers on the HP website.

I managed to flash the BIOS with a new version just before my old HDD crashed (it was on the fritz so I managed to back up my data on a USB)

- I've also tried the Clean Installation Guide posted here, no difference.
- I've tried formatting it in Disk Management, still no detection.


I've looked at many forum topics here and it points to an SATA non-detection issue?
or could it be that I"m installing Windows 7 Ultimate on a VISTA machine and it's not accepting it? I bought this new hdd thinking I could just put it in and install with no fuss but 4+ days later it's a giant headache and I can't return the hdd if I wanted to.

There's a pin (primary slave) on the Seagate that was not on the original, but there are no jumper pins, could this be the problem?

I'm at loss at what to try but I need to get this up and running for my work. Can anyone help me? I would be happy to provide more details if necessary. Thank you for your time.

Mike

Hi kegobeer,

thanks for the reply,

No, it's not listed in the boot sequence. And there is no SATA Native option either... damn HP.

Oh, and I cannot install XP on it either, it gives me a BSOD with an Error I can't remember. Research showed me that the error was due to trying to install XP on a VISTA locked machine.

Thanks, but I mentioned that I can't change my SATA/IDE settings in BIOS. Not available on this laptop.

You need to get the HD recognized in BIOS setup. Try plugging into another SATA port. Check or replace the cabling. There are no jumpers on a SATA HD for Master/slave etc.

Where did you get Win7? If you downloaded the ISO, verify it's integrity or download another, write to USB flash stick using Universal USB Installer with WIn7 in dropdown menu. Boot under USB, REmovable, or HD's using one-time BIOS Boot Menu key with HD set first to boot in BIOS setup.

Hi Kego, Greg,

I managed to get it detected. You were right about it not being a Windows 7 issue.

I'm just going to post this here in case someone stumbles upon this in 2 years time and is pulling their hair out like I have these past few days.

I came upon this after trying driver after driver and verifying my ISO backups. A friend asked me if the jumpers were in the right configuration. I suspected this might have something to do with it but didn't think it'd be so simple after hours of researching the net.

My Seagate momentus came with no jumpers but an open pin configuration. However, when I set the pin configuration with an old jumper I found, it suddenly detected. The reason? The Mobo wasn't fast enough to keep up with the 3.0 Gbps data transfer speed. You need to limit it to 1.5 Gbps with the jumper.

Here is the configuration that may help. http://support.seagate.com/kbimg/48-8.jpg

Here is the link for Seagate troubleshooting. The BIOS does not detect or recognize the ATA / SATA hard drive.

The website is pretty poor... so was AMD's. I'm not surprised so many people have problems.

Anyways, thanks for your ideas and replies. I appreciate the time you took. I am now running through the windows installation. Hopefully it will be smooth from here-on-in. I hope this will help other people out in the future. Good luck.

Very nice to know that these speed-regulating jumpers on SATA HD's might come into play in this way. Thanks.