No Drives Found for Windows 7 clean install - new system

I have built a computer and I am quite stumped by this issue

Gigabyte H77M-D3H ver 1.1 board
8 GB ram
Intel 2105 i3 CPU
Adata SSD SP900 256GB SSD
Silverstone 500w psu
Pinoneer DVD RW
Windows 7 Home Premium with SP1 OEM disk.


I have several copies of Windows 7 full OEM disks, I have tried 9 other disks thinking there may be a read error. I believe I have successfully eliminated that as a possibility.


I assembled the system, booted into BIOS, set AHCI enabled, Boot priority to DVD Drive on SATA channel 4 as #1, and SATA channel 0 #2 the Adata SSD. SATA channel 0, and 1 are 6gb/sec 2-5 are 3gb/sec. I disabledd UEFI and set to legacy. The BIOS sees the SATA drive size and manufacturer. Saved BIOS settings and rebooted with Windows 7 Disk in drive.


On the tutorial seen here https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html
I can only get to step 7. When at that screen I have no drive to select and i get the alert "No drives found". One time, and one time only - I did get a drive to select which had 0 space avalable to load windows.

The BIOS for this board is the latest and greatest from Gigabyte - F9 version. F10 is a beta build.


What I have done:
1. Looked at Adata website for any drivers - none, only the firmware update tools
2. Looked at Gigabyte website and found nothing pertaining to this issue. Went thru MB manual and it says to load the provided mother board driver disk 'after' windows is installed.
3. Removed battery from MB, reset CMOS, let the board sit for about 3 hours while I did other work with no battery, retunred BIOS to factory defaults. Selected AHCI but left UEFI on auto detect. Saved BIOS, rebooted, still got to step 7 of tutorial with same results.
4. Put a standard HDD in which is known to be working on SATA channel 5, same issue as above. Seen in the BIOS but not for windows install.
5. Went back into BIOS and set ACHI for IDE for use with the standard HDD, still same issue as above. Reset CMOS, returned BIOS to defaults, verified AHCI was disabled and using the known working HDD attempted once again to load Windows, got to step 7 with 'No drives found, insert driver disk....'
6. Attached Adata SSD to a seperate machine as an external Mass Storage device. Formatted drive, had no issues with seeing drive, nor with windows loading drivers when it was attached via USB adapter.


At this point I am considering the following:
1. Install the SSD into a seperate machine and attempt to load windows.
2. remove board from tray, and reinstall.
3. Install new firmware on SSD.
4. RMA the board.


Any assistance is appreciated. I have gone thru the various threads related to this issue and have found a lot of people using USB drives to load windows. In my case I do not believe I have an issue with the .ISO being bad or the copy of windows being bad. I have full version OEM and store bought copies of Win7 Home Premium with SP1. I am not downloading and burning Windows7.

Have you tried booting the DVD in uEFI mode?




How to install Windows 64 bit on a uEFI/BIOS firmware:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with
or
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ndows-8-a.html

Yes. I have set UEFI to auto, and then to disabled. In the boot tree it looks like this

1. UEFI DVD
2. ADATA SSD
3. DVD drive

I have moved the boot tree around to this

1. DVD drive
2. ADATA SSD
3. UEFI disabled

If you'd like me to take a picture of it and post it I can, I run the setups on a 70" screen

Try downloading F6 sata conroller drivers from here:
GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-H77M-D3H (rev. 1.1)
than
SATA Driver - Load in Windows 7 or Vista Setup

For best Perormance use uEFI mode.

I will give it a shot, will reset CMOS prior to attempting to make sure I am back at factory default settings, then I will set AHCI enabled and leave UEFI on auto.

As an update - I did get the driver located on the USB drive. I followed the tutorial - however the drive never showed up after I loaded the driver from Gigabyte. I am going to clear the CMOS and start over again. I must be missing something simple.

Do you have UEFI compatibility Support Mode settings? What are they?

Are you unplugging all other HD's and peripherals?

If you can't install in UEFI mode you can also Bypass UEFI to Install WIn7.

Watch this video to fully understand UEFI vs. BIOS: