Why won't my computer recognize my clean install of Win 7 on SSD?

Hi all,

My sister has an HP G62. I bought a Crucial M4 256gb ssd for christmas for her to help speed it up. I used the HP factory recovery disks to install the HP factory version of Windows 7 64 bit to the SSD.

But on booting up, the computer does not recognize the SSD as boot-worthy. I went into BIOS and ran a diagnostic on the SSD and that worked fine. Any idea why this might be happening? Do I have to enable some setting in BIOS to get it to recognize the SSD?

Or should I do a clean, non-HP-recovery install of Windows 7?

Thanks a million for your help.

Thanks Pauly.

I just don't want to redo this whole process only to find that there is a reason BIOS is not picking up the SSD. Do you think it is the crapware that is interfering with its recognition at bootup?

Well I ran the four HP recovery disks, it took about an hour, and at the end of it, everything seemed fine. The recovery software said the computer would restart then begin to search for drivers, but when the computer restarted I only got the HP insignia and then a black screen saying a bootable disk was required.

I've read something about AHCI... do I need to do something with that for the SSD to be recognized?

BIOS won't let me change it to AHCI, I don't have any advanced options.

I'm going to try a clean install and see what happens.

Cheers.

I would reset the BIOS to defaults, then set SATA controller to AHCI. Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS - Reset BIOS

Unplug all other HD's, set DVD drive to boot first, then SSD.

Then stick closely to the steps to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

If any problems persist report back at which step and any error message.

Hello folks

I performed a clean install and the BIOS was able to read the SSD. Unfortunately, when trying to activate Windows 7 I am running into some problems. I tried activating online... no luck. It's not giving me any sort of activate by phone option.

Any ideas how I can get this to work? It's saying "You must activate today" so I don't want to leave this much longer.

Is it possible that I wasn't supposed to install with the SP1?

Thanks.