Can't install Windows 7 Ultimate

Motherboard GA-P55M-UD2 (rev. 1.0) Gigabyte
Processor Intel i5 Core 750
Ram 4GB DDR3 (2 sticks 2GB)
2 Sata hard drives
1 IDE DVD Burner

I have tried to switch the hard drives in the BIOS from "Compatabity" to "AHCI" mode and it did not make any difference.

I went to Gigabytes website and they show:

GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver
Intel SATA RAID Driver

Both of these were listed form my specific motherboard and as compatable
with Windows 7 64 bit. I have tried both sets of drivers with
"Compatability" mode and "AHCI" mode and neither time did it work.

If I remove the DVD Rom out of the computer that should eliminate that
as something I need a driver for...right?


There is also another setting for the hard drives for these settings --

IDE
SATA
SATE/RAID

I have tried both the IDE setting and Sata setting pointng to the same drivers
I downladed from Gigabyte's webiste. No help.

Thanx to those helping..I am going mad but at least I think I am not going mad
alone..LOL



I am also amazed that Windows 7 Home Premium installed ran inside of Vista
and installed with no problems. Why is Windows 7 Ultimate giving me such a headache.
Does the "Ultimate" stand for the "Ultimate pain in the neck?" :)

You want the first drivers (not RAID) unzipped/extracted onto your flash, then browse from the booted installer when it prompts for drivers to each folder until it installs.

Set the BIOS to SATA

Okay. here is the latest.

In BIOS I have some options.

For SATA/RAID AHCI MODE I set it to AHCI (other options were DISABLED or RAID)
Further down the options page there are two more related settings
ONBOARD SATA/IDE which I have set to ENABLED (other option DISABLED)
ONBOARD SATA/IDE CTRL MODE which has the options IDE, AHCI oe RAID/IDE.
I set it to AHCI.

Downloaded the driver again from Gigabyte and placed memory key.

Booted with the DVD-ROM and again it asked me for the drivers.

I pointed to the folders on the memory key and it would not install the driver.

Can anyone verify if Windows 7 Ultimate from a DVD can be ran from
within Windows Vista to install or update?

One final note which may also be the answer.

I noticed when I looked the SATA driver during the attempt to install
Windows 7 and I pointed to the driver folder, it called the
controller the GBB36X controller. I did a goole search and found this -

"I have a Gigabyte motherboard (GA-MA-790X-UD4P). Vista Home Premium (32 bit). I will upgrade to Windows 7 32 bit when it comes out. My problem - I ran the MS Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and it was recommended that I upgrade the GIGABYTE GBB36X controller to make it compatible"

It goes on later on the post that Gigabit has yet to release a newer driver. So,
I might have a problem.

I am trying now to use drivermax to export the GBB36X driver from the current
Windows 7 install and try to use that when I try to install Windows 7 from the DVD.
Not sure how much luck I will have.

I could drop Gigabyte and e-mail but I am not sure how well of a response I will get.

orlandotek said:

ONBOARD SATA/IDE CTRL MODE which has the options IDE, AHCI oe RAID/IDE.
I set it to AHCI.

Set it to IDE.

Can you extract the files from the ISO using PowerISO trial and try to run setup from Win7 premium. Then browse from installer to windows/system32/drivers or driverstore to find SATA drivers.

Also try running Ultimate installer from Premium desktop as an Upgrade install. Wait to give the key if it won't accept it first time.

If you still can't run the installer from Win7, then try browsing to those folders from booted installer.

Gigabit might not have a newer driver yet, but it is running in Win7 Premium, perhaps using the Vista driver.

And yes Win7 installer can be run from Vista environment, tried first as a Custom clean install (browse to windows/system32/drivers or driverstore for SATA driver) or as an Upgrade install which will carry over Vista drivers with necessary updates.

I believe this has been resolved.

First, I had asked about running th SETUP from the Ultimate DVD within Windows
and getting an error message. SPWIZENG.DLL. I had searched this and ALOT of other people were getting the same message, If its not unique to me then I believe the error is not in my condo but on the DVD.

Okay. I had purchased the license for Ultimate from my school and they sent
me a link..its not here its at work but the link was like https://fr.files.microsoft.com/files/cmg?/ and then some long serial number.
Looks like it was coming from Microsoft. I downloaded it and burned it to a DVD
using IMGBRN software.

I had read other forums with people having the same error as I was with the
driver during setup and they said they re-downloaded the iso. I went online and
tried to see if I could download it from some other source. Looked like I could
not download it directly from Microsoft without paying full price from their
website. Someone posted a link to download the ISO from Aamazon but
it was p a i n f u l l y s l o w! It took 2 days to download. This morning
it finished and I burned it to a DVD using the same IMGBRN software.I tried to run
the SETUP.EXE from within Windows and got the same SPWIZENG.DLL error.
Wasn't looking promising. I booted off the DVD like I had done before
and FINALLY got to the licensing screen and asking me if I want
an upgrade installation or custom. The other DVD never got that far.

I am not ready to blow away the PC yet. I have some gaming save files to
copy and stuff but I suspect its going to work now since I seemed to
have made it past the error.

A bad burn or maybe a bad source iso from wherever I downloaded it
from seemed to be the problem.

I'll post again once the installation completes..if it does..LOL.

Thanx again everyone!

Sounds promising. Suggest you try booting from the DVD, choose Custom, delete the target partition, create new again, and format for cleanest install.

If there are hitches: Did you burn at slowest 4x speed and check Verify on ImgBurn to verify burn?

Can you find the checksum HASH at your download site to check against your download's HASH to verify download?

I'm back.

Win7 Ultimate is now installed and activated and all is well.

I was surprised with the install of Win7 (like I was when I installed Home Premium)
that Windows found and installed all of my drivers. Even for my WinTV card
and video card.

I think it burned both burns at 8x. I did not pay attention really either time.
But now that I have a good DVD-Rom its not all that important.

Yes, when I burned both DVD's I had it set to verify. I'm pretty tech savvy
and when you say verify the HASH I'm not totally in the dark by what that
means but its something I have never done so I'm not sure where to start.
Again, I have a working DVD now so I already through the other DVD away
with the bad burn or whatever problem it had.

My last step was to try to get the school to give me an already brned copy
on a DVD if the tech guys would but now I don't need to ask.

Thanks again everyone.

Win7 installer is driver-complete because MS funded WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) where all manufacturers partnered with them to develop Win7 drivers, so MS has them first since they paid the bills.

Their tech support is also highly funded (think billions) so it is a cut way above others too and often provides more than the cost of the product.

Be sure to make a backup image of your installation saved externally, so you never have to reinstall again - just boot from the installer and "Recover using an image" in Repair console to reimage your HDD or a replacement in 15 minutes.