Solved Diskpart not detecting drives (Installation USB)

[poozza]

Hello all,

I need to fix my PC due to MBR errors, so I burned a Win7 ISO file to a USB drive. From there, I entered Diskpart and the "list disk" command only shows the USB drive itself. GRUB GNU (The bootloader I am overwriting) shows all my HDDs, but is unable to access them. Is there any way to fix this? Thanks!

 

[gregrocker]

How did you write the ISO to stick? Do you have a UEFI BIOS?

Everything possible is here for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start .

In the future best to use this method to Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7

 

[poozza]

Sorry for the long gap. I tried burning the ISO to a disk, and got it to boot. This time, "bootrec.exe /fixmbr" gives me "Path not found" or a similar error. I tried booting it from UEFI, but still nothing. I don't think I'll be installing Ubuntu again anytime soon .

I noted that there was a solution called Repair Installation (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html), but would it retain all my programs? And, can it detect a previous install if the bootloader is messed up? Thanks!

 

[gregrocker]

Can you boot into Windows as required to run a Repair Install?

If not then continue with the steps for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start.

Which is the Active partition? How many Startup Repairs did you run after confirming Partition Marked Active?

We need feedback for each step to know what you've done, and not just a fraction of a step in the middle.

 

[poozza]

During troubleshooting, I noticed a strange attribute in which the BIOS and Windows Installation Disk could not find the disk, although the Partition Wizard can modify and access the partitions, and booting from the drive is an option. I cleaned the Linux partitions up and made a System Reserved partition. Running BIOS diagnostics shows no hard drives installed, and booting from the drive itself gives me the message "NTLDR is missing", which is easy to repair from the installation disk (but it cannot access the hard drive).

I believe my computer has built-in RAID technology (each startup gives the message "PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS", and then goes to boot up to windows), and from "LEGACY BOOT" I have the option "(Bus 02 Dev 00)PCI RAID Adapter". All that is left for me to do now is run startup repair and rewrite the boot files, yet it cannot read the drives.

 

[gregrocker]

Then follow these steps to Troubleshoot Windows 7 Installation Failures - Windows 7 Help Forums.

No need to create a System Reserved partition. If Win7 is going to install, it will create it so there is no benefit and possible problems by doing anything other than wiping the disk per the tutorial above, then running commands to create an Active partition.

Note that NTLDR is an XP error, so the drive clearly needs to be wiped of old boot code and partition table per tutorial.

 

[poozza]

I am actually recovering the Win7 installation by rewriting the boot files, the only issue is the HDDs not being detected by BIOS or the install disk.

 

[gregrocker]

You have GRUB and NTLDR (XP Boot code) on the drive which is not always recoverable, particularly the older GRUB1 which always requires wiping to recover Win7. Best to wipe the drive to start over with a perfect Clean Reinstall Windows 7

You can try marking Mark Win7 Partition Active to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to see if it will write the boot files there if they were not already there.

Just about everything that can be tried is in Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start. I'd start with Steps 5-10. Those steps are based on helping tens of thousands of users here since Win7 beta.

If you can boot into Partition Wizard disk suggested in tutorial and post back a camera snap of drive map, we can almost always spot the problem.

You did come here for our help, right? Or did you want to tell us how it's done?

 

[poozza]

No... It seems as if my BIOS cannot detect any HDDs at all, perhaps it's an issue with RAID or PERC. I attempted switching the SATA cord, not working either. I'll try your suggestions again and see if they work. Thanks for all your help.

 

[gregrocker]

Is the SATA controller set to AHCI in BIOS?

Is any separate RAID controller disabled?

Can we see pictures of BIOS settings if in doubt?

 

[poozza]

I fixed it. After hours of research, I found a driver for the RAID disk system (PERC) and burned it to a disk, and ran Windows installation on another disk. I booted from the install disk, and managed to load the driver from the other disk, and ran Startup Repair from it multiple times. Eventually, it booted and the whole system was intact.

Thank you for all your support all this time, I had many important programs and files on the drive.