Solved Trying to do a clean install of OS on new SSD, but having problems

[Lonelylunar]

HI, I'm trying to do a clean install of windows 7 Pro x64 on a new SSD I bought but I'm having a persistent problem no matter what I try or what steps I use to try and fix the problem. I'm using a disk copy for the install (if it matters) and I get to the screen where it asks where I want to install the OS, I pick my SSD, then I click ADVANCED, then NEW, I select the partition size and format. But I get the same error message every time which is "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate and existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information".

If anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it, I've been stuck on this problem for about a week now and it's drastically increasing my stress levels.

 

[AddRAM]

Sounds like the ssd was setup up as gpt, convert it to mbr.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26203-convert-gpt-disk-mbr-disk.html

If you have a UEFI bios and want to install using the GPT partition style, you`ll have to setup the installer that way.

I don`t use that, I always set the bios to legacy boot and disable UEFI if it has it, and install to a MBR partition.

 

[Lonelylunar]

AddRAM, I followed the steps in the link and converted to mbr through the the command prompt, when I got to the "where do you want the OS" page of the installer I clicked ADVANCED, then NEW to partition the drive, I then formatted. But I still get the same error as before "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate and existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information".

What should I do now?

 

[gregrocker]

Work through the steps to Troubleshoot Windows 7 Installation Failures reporting back results.

 

[Lonelylunar]

Okay, after going through the steps you gave me at least 5 times and fiddling around with bios options I finally got windows to install on to the SSD (woot), but I now have another problem (it never ends).

I now have windows installed onto my SSD and so far everything works just fine, but now my SSD is the only drive that shows up. other than the SSD I also have a 2 tb HDD, bios says its there and boot says its there but when on the desktop and go into "my computer" it doesn't show up.

How do I fix it?

 

[whs]

Can you post a picture of your disk management please.

 

[gregrocker]

Likely need to add a Drive Letter in Disk Mgmt: Drive Letter - Add, Change, or Remove in Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Chris2005]

I've had that disk missing issue before, as gregrocker said, you probably need to assign drive letters to them, and they should appear, did for me anyway, lol.

 

[Lonelylunar]

okay the issue was a little different than just assigning the drive a letter, but I figured it out and fixed the problem and everything runs great so far. The problem was that the disk showed up as foreign so I couldn't access it, what fixed it was right clicking the disk and clicking the option to "import foreign disks".

I really appreciate all of the help you guys have given me with this, thanks you.

 

[whs]

Hmm, has anybody ever heard of a "foreign disk" ?

 

[Chris2005]

Hmm, has anybody ever heard of a "foreign disk" ?

Here's something about it, I think:
What is Foreign Dynamic Disk and How to Access it?

 

[gregrocker]

Please post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image.

A Dynamic disk should only be used to span a partition across multiple hard drives. If this is not the case then it can cause problems.

Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

 

[Lonelylunar]

A Dynamic disk should only be used to span a partition across multiple hard drives.


What does that mean?


If this is not the case then it can cause problems.


What kind of problems can it cause?

 

[gregrocker]

Why do you want a Dynamic Disk?

A Dynamic disk is only meant to be used to span a single partition across multiple hard drives, or for certain RAID arrays. A single partition like you appear to have should be on a Basic Disk.

Basic and Dynamic Disks (Windows)

I would use Option One in Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk - Windows 7 Help Forums to non-destructively convert to Basic. It has worked just fine when used in cases like this we see here regularly. That tutorial has never been reported to fail and has been used to date by 974,751.

 

[Lonelylunar]

It's not that i want to use a dynamic disk, I just didn't know the difference and didn't know it mattered, I'd been using the disk as dynamic for 3 years now. But either way I changed it to basic as you said.

 

[gregrocker]

How is everything now? Is Win7 performance fine?

Other tips here to get and keep a perfect Clean Reinstall Windows 7.

 

[Lonelylunar]

Sort of, Right before I changed the disk to basic from dynamic, my computer crashed, it blue screened talking about a memory problem. I struggled with this problem for a little over a year before taking it to someone and getting it looked at, while they had it the problem would never reproduce itself but ran a bunch of test and found that one of my SATA cables was bad so he replaced it. Ever since then the computer has worked just fine without any problems, that is until I accidentally ****ed myself by formatting the wrong drive in the process of upgrading my SSD. Now that I have upgraged the problem resurfaced only that one time, which was moments before converting the disk to basic. Now that I have converted the disk to basic I haven't had the problem show up again, but if/when I does I'll take a picture of it and post it here to see if you guys can figure it out.

 

[gregrocker]

Do you have the Win7 drive plugged into SATA1 port?

It's best to have the OS drive in DISK0 in Disk Mgmt, so that during repairs or reinstall the System boot files can't be derailed to a preceding primary partition on another drive.

Have you tested your RAM - Test with Memtest86+?

 

[Chris2005]

Do you have the Win7 drive plugged into SATA1 port?

It's best to have the OS drive in DISK0 in Disk Mgmt, so that during repairs or reinstall the System boot files can't be derailed to a preceding primary partition on another drive.

Have you tested your RAM - Test with Memtest86+?

That's what odd about my system is my Windows drive is listed as DISK1, not DISK0, even though it's plugged into the same SATA port as my old SSD was which was also my main Windows drive... according to KB937251, the order in which SATA disks are enumerated and displayed on Windows is not guaranteed to correspond to which SATA ports the disks are connected to, and can even vary between operating system start-ups.

 

[Lonelylunar]

Do you have the Win7 drive plugged into SATA1 port?

It's best to have the OS drive in DISK0 in Disk Mgmt, so that during repairs or reinstall the System boot files can't be derailed to a preceding primary partition on another drive.

Have you tested your RAM - Test with Memtest86+?

Yes I've tested my RAM, I did so probably 20 times during the year and a half or so that I had the problem consistently, the verdict being that the RAM being perfectly fine, as the motherboard. But as I said the problem was fixed by replacing a SATA cable, and the crash only happened that one time and hasn't yet happened again.