Unable to partition drive

[narayanjr]

My build:
Intel core i5 2500k
ASUS P67P8 Pro MOBO
F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL G.Skill 2x4gb
CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1


So I put the computer together and attempted to install Windows 7 home premium 64. I got the same error over and over again than fixed it by changing ram positions and was able to install W7 onto the SSD. It worked fine for a day. I then loaded gfx card drivers and loaded all the drivers off the MOBO disk. I rebooted a few times and it lal worked fine. Then I opened up the case again and installed a SATA dvd drive. After booting up again it said it couldnt find the required drive. It wasnt able to find any operating system.


I went through DISKPART and did list drive and it shows the drive. how ever when I select the drive there are no partitions and no volumes. So I attempted to reinstall W7 but everytime I try it gives me the error Unable to install to the selected location. Error: 0x80300024. When I try and make a partition it looks like its trying then it stops and it did nothing. I also tried doing all the startup repairs from windows. I also tried using bootrec.exe to fix mbr and bcd both returned success but neither fixed anything. When i did bootrec scan os it said there was no OS. I also tried using DISKPART to do Clean all on the drive and i get an error, "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. "
So it wont let me do anything to the disk.


I have tried running it from two different sata3 ports and 1 of my sata2 ports they all have the same issue. I have tried disconnecting other drivers and just running the SSD and it still doesnt work. I tried removing the dvd drive and that did not fix the problem.


I am at a loss for what to try now or what is really causing the issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Adam

 

[dsperber]

Win7 must be installed either (a) to the FIRST hard disk, per the BIOS settings... indicated as the boot drive in your boot drive priority lists, or (b) a second location on an environment with an existing Windows already installed (in which case that existing Windows is the "boot drive" and Win7 will install a multi-boot Boot Manager setup on that other "boot drive" for the other Windows.

You will not be allowed to just pick an arbitrary location to install Win7. That's why you're getting "cannot be installed here" message.

You first have to update your BIOS, to mark the new SATA drive as the first hard disk so that it is the boot drive. Then you'll be able to install Win7 there.

Did I understand your problem correctly?

Now to make it even more complicated, if you want to divide that new SATA drive into several partitions, you cannot just install Win7 to any partition on it. Win7 wants to be in a primary partition, and if the new drive was completely empty when you started the install Win7 would actually create a 100MB "system reserved" NTFS primary partition for its boot/loader files, and mark that primary partition as "active+system". Win7 itself would then be installed in a second primary partition (taking up the rest of the drive, unless you partitioned it otherwise), marked as "system".

These two partitions would all go at the front of the drive. It normally is an easy way to get started, just to leave it like this and not worry about partitioning using Win7 itself (at least I don't).

After you complete the Win7 install on the new SATA drive, you can use a product like MiniTool's Partition Wizard or similar to shrink the size of the Win7 partition on that drive and create additional partition(s) in the rest of the space. They will be LOGICAL partitions carved out of the remaining free space as opposed to the PRIMARY partition type for Win7 itself and that special "system reserved" space.

If Win7 can't build that 100MB "system reserved" partition on the new drive as well as the Win7 partition itself, you'll also get "cannot install" messages.

Again, easiest thing for a brand new install to a brand new SATA drive (forgetting about what you've got on the SSD for the moment, as I can't remember) is just leave it totally blank, and Win7 will install there (as long as the BIOS says it's hard disk #1 and named in the boot sequence). Then carve up the drive later, with Partition Wizard.

 

[whs]

Hmm, let's see - so all you did is install an optical reader and the thing went bust. That is very hard to believe especially looking at the extend of the apparent damage. Are you sure you did not change things in the BIOS - e.g. IDE to AHCI - although even that should not have wiped out your partitions and your OS.

Suggest you take a second look at the SSD with the bootable CD of this program. Maybe you see something strange. If possible take a picture with a camera and post it here so that we can all sing from the same sheet.

 

[dsperber]

I think I confused things, not remembering what you'd done with the SSD drive.

So you really want Win7 on the SSD drive (by itself, not in a multi-boot arrangement say with another WinXP partition on the same machine). You made that happen because your BIOS pointed to that disk as hard disk #1, and it was named in the boot sequence.

When you added the SATA drive, apparently your BIOS decided that this new hard disk should be hard disk #1 instead of your SSD drive. And if you've partitioned that new SATA drive incorrectly before getting Win7 installed on it as I described above (or correcting the problem by getting into the BIOS setup and pointing back to the SSD drive as hard disk #1 so that the SATA drive is just for data), well now you can't install Win7 on that drive at all.

I think you need to get back into your BIOS setup and re-point the SSD drive as disk #1 and as your boot drive. Then the second SATA drive is disk #2 and pure data, and you can partition it any way you want under Win7 (or with Partition Wizard, either running under Win7 or standalone off its boot CD) which is what you should really be using rather than DISKPART.

You don't want to install Win7 to the SATA drive. My mistake. But my comments above about Win7's pickiness about hard disk #1 and the boot drive, and the "system reserved" partition for boot manager files, etc., are all valid and correct.

 

[whs]

dsperber, he was trying to install with everything (except the SSD) disconnected. That shows that something is mucked up on the SSD. The SSD can be on any port, that does not matter. I have one on port3 and on another system on port4. But the smart way is to disconnect the HDDs because the Win7 installer has this habit to put the bootmgr on the first Sata it finds - even if the system itself gets to the right disk.

I suggest we wait until he reports back with his findings from PW. He may have to setup the SSD again on another system - either in a bay or in an external enclosure.

 

[narayanjr]

I have the drive plugged into the sata slot labeled 1 of 6 on my board. I installed W7 once but then the OS disappeared and I have no idea where it has gone So I am trying to either recover it or reinstall it. I dont want multiple partitions just the Primary and the System reserved.

I just ran the start up repair again and looked at the Log file. the test it fails on is,
Repair action: Disk metadata repair
Result: Failed. Error code = 0x45d
it also states above that MBR is corrupt.

I looked up the error code and from what I see it is most likely the HD that is bad but I dont truly know.

I am in the process of running that bootable cd now. And will post the results shortly.

Thanks,
Adam

 

[whs]

I would take the SSD out and put it into an operational system (or an external enclosure). First I would rebuild the MBR. That you can do with the bootble CD of PW.

Then you can set it up with elevated Command prompt. The commands are - each followed by Enter

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (where n is the number that was given for your SSD in List disk)
Create partition primary align=1024
Active (assuming you want to install an OS)
Exit

Then try installing in the new build again. The advantage of installing to a predefined partition is that you do not get the dreaded 100MB active partition but the bootmgr will be on C,

 

[narayanjr]

When i Ran that i get stuck at,
ata1.00 status drdy
ata1: hard resetting link
ata1: link is slow to respond please be patient
ata1: comreset failed errno=-16
ata1: hard resetting link
repeated 3 times
ata1: limiting sata link speed to 3gigabits

It did that a few times
After it made it past all of that. I got an error saying it doesnt support windows servers.

 

[dsperber]

dsperber, he was trying to install with everything (except the SSD) disconnected.

Well, I'm certainly confused enough.

I thought he'd already succeeded in getting Win7 installed onto the SSD when there was no SATA drive in the machine.

Then he installed the SATA drive, and problems ensued. Did I get this wrong?

My theory was that the installation of the second drive caused his BIOS to designate the new SATA drive as "hard disk #1", i.e. the boot drive. There obviously was no OS on it yet, since it had been installed on the SSD drive previously.

I was speculating that all that was really needed to get things back to "working properly" was to get back into the BIOS and rearrange the hard disk sequence, so that the SSD drive was again either (a) hard disk #1, if that's what an SSD drive looks like... I don't have one so I don't really know, or (b) change the boot sequence order to go to the SSD drive first and not the SATA drive first (which it seems is what the BIOS did, on its own, when it saw the installed SATA drive for the first time).

That shows that something is mucked up on the SSD. The SSD can be on any port, that does not matter. I have one on port3 and on another system on port4.

Right. The SATA port number itself really means nothing. It's just a connector.

But the smart way is to disconnect the HDDs because the Win7 installer has this habit to put the bootmgr on the first Sata it finds - even if the system itself gets to the right disk.

Win7's installer is not just picking the first SATA drive as the target for the boot manager files.

It's picking the hard disk #1, i.e. whatever is specified as boot drive in the BIOS setup. That's what the BIOS is going to boot to, so that's where the boot manager files need to go... no matter where the actual Win7 or WinXP or whatever OS(s) are placed. That's where BCD puts its ini file with the names and locations of the other bootable OS's, and where they are (drive number and partition number on that drive)... on the BOOT DRIVE, which is that first hard disk per the BIOS.

Seems to me if you want the SSD to be the boot drive, just rearrange the hard disk sequence in the BIOS to list it as the first hard disk, and specify it first in the boot device sequence (if it's not already there) and not the SATA drive.

I suggest we wait until he reports back with his findings from PW. He may have to setup the SSD again on another system - either in a bay or in an external enclosure.

I admit, I was kind of confused about the whole story in the original post.

But getting Win7 to install where you want it, which may or may not require that special 100MB "system reserved" partition if you're not installing in an environment which already has another bootable Windows (located on what the BIOS currently considers "the boot drive"), requires that the Win7 installer can pretty much have its way... and that is most easily done by just leaving all space on the target drive completely free. Let Win7 do whatever it wants. Then you can come back later and shrink the Win7 partition, and allocate other logical partitions if that's what you want to do.

From that point on, that first "boot drive" (actually, the 100MB "system reserved" partition) will be the location for the boot manager files, which will point to the Win7 partition also on that same drive. There should then be no problem installing the SATA drive as a second drive... as long as that doesn't trigger the BIOS to fool with the hard drive numbers and boot drive sequence, in which case it just needs to be reset manually to resolve any confusion. Obviously, the bootable system (i.e. boot manager) is not on the SATA drive, so you can't let the BIOS boot to the SATA drive... if the "system reserved" partition is on the SSD.

 

[whs]

When i Ran that i get stuck at,
ata1.00 status drdy
ata1: hard resetting link
ata1: link is slow to respond please be patient
ata1: comreset failed errno=-16
ata1: hard resetting link
repeated 3 times
ata1: limiting sata link speed to 3gigabits

It did that a few times
After it made it past all of that. I got an error saying it doesnt support windows servers.

Hmm, that gets even stranger. Looks like there is something wrong with your Sata. Better check your BIOS what that could be - I have no clue.

 

[narayanjr]

Ok sorry if my post was confusing it made sense in my head lets try this again.

So I built a brand new computer and was able to install W7 onto my SSD drive. It worked fine. I then proceeded to install an optical drive. After doing so the computer would no longer boot saying it couldnt find a required device. I removed all other devices except my SSD and tried booting again, I got the same Error. I then ran Start Up repair and it had no effect. I tried manually running parts of bootrec.exe. Still this produced no results. I then tried to use DISKPART to see if it saw the drive or anything on it. DISKPART is able to see the drive but tells me that there are no partitions and no volumes on it. At this point I decided to just reinstall W7. I tried to do CLEAN ALL to the drive but I get a device I/O error every time I try. I also tried doing "create partition primary" and It gives me the same error. When I try to install W7 from the disk it says, "Disk 0 unallocated space" its the entire disk. However it will not let me partition it there either. If I tell it to just install with manually making the partition, It gives me the "0x80300024" error and will not let me proceed.

I hope that makes more sense. Thanks for the hlep.
Adam

 

[whs]

Adam, I think we are getting closer. There is definitely either a hardware channel or a BIOS problem. In every attempt you try you cannot get to the disk.

 

[narayanjr]

Is there anything else I can do to help limit it down more? Will testing the SSD on the Marvel Sata ports, Intel Sata 6gbit ports and Intel sata 3gbit ports help limit it down. The first time it was installed, the SSD was on the Marvel Sata ports and not the Intel ones if that matters.

 

[whs]

That is certainly worth exploring. I remember there was something special to the Marvel ports - but the details ascape me right now.

PS: I will have to log off now. It is 12.24AM. Talk to you tomorrow some more.

 

[dsperber]

So I built a brand new computer and was able to install W7 onto my SSD drive.

Did you install from a Win7 installation DVD?

So you had a DVD drive on the machine, as well as the SSD drive.

And at that point your motherboard BIOS specified that SSD drive as the first (and only) hard disk, and obviously had it in the boot sequence (after the DVD drive, I'm sure).

Hard drive number assignment and boot sequence order are two settings available to you in all motherboard BIOS.

It worked fine.

Not surprising.

I then proceeded to install an optical drive.

Huh?? A SECOND DVD drive?

A CD/DVD drive is an optical drive, and you'd already installed Win7 which comes on a DVD. So you must already have had one CD/DVD drive in the box.

Do you mean you now tried to install a second HARD DRIVE... e.g. say a 300GB SATA drive? To supplement your SSD SATA drive?

After doing so the computer would no longer boot saying it couldnt find a required device.

I am speculating that when you physically installed the SATA hard drive (I'm not going to believe you got these problems from adding a second CD/DVD drive) that the BIOS on your motherboard assigned IT to be hard disk #1, and put it into the boot sequence order.

Obviously that is not what you wanted, but I'm guessing that's what happened... unbeknownst to you.

I believe if you get into the BIOS right now (most commonly just press the DELETE key when booting the machine, and you'll enter the SETUP of the BIOS... but check your hardware manual for the computer) you'll have an opportunity to examine both (a) your hard drive numbers, and (b) your boot sequence order.

You want to reset things the way they were when you first got Win7 installed to the SSD successfully without a problem. You want the SSD drive to once again be disk #1, and you want it to appear early in the boot sequence order (certainly in front of the SATA drive which is meaningless for booting, since it's intended for data just now... but probably after your CD/DVD drive).

I removed all other devices except my SSD and tried booting again, I got the same Error.

Again, I am most curious as to what your BIOS says right now... both for hard drives and also your boot device sequence.

This is the absolute first thing we need to know, in order to prescribe any further remedies.

I then ran Start Up repair and it had no effect.

Because the problem is in the BIOS settings of the motherboard, not in Win7 or on the installed Win7 on your SSD.

Again in my opinion things happened in the BIOS settings that you didn't expect (or know about) when you added the SATA hard drive. You're now trying to reset the BIOS back to the way it looked when you first installed Win7 successfully on the SSD.

That SATA drive should be hard drive #2, not #1. And the SSD drive should be named in the boot device sequence.

If you don't have a device actually installed that for some reason is named in the boot device sequence, you're going to get very strange errors... like "required device not found" or something equally strange.

I tried manually running parts of bootrec.exe. Still this produced no results. I then tried to use DISKPART to see if it saw the drive or anything on it. DISKPART is able to see the drive but tells me that there are no partitions and no volumes on it.

Don't get carried away here trying to repair something, until we know what the BIOS thinks is in your machine.

Hard drive numbers, and boot device sequence. Report back with those answers.

At this point I decided to just reinstall W7. I tried to do CLEAN ALL to the drive but I get a device I/O error every time I try. I also tried doing "create partition primary" and It gives me the same error. When I try to install W7 from the disk it says, "Disk 0 unallocated space" its the entire disk. However it will not let me partition it there either. If I tell it to just install with manually making the partition, It gives me the "0x80300024" error and will not let me proceed.

Don't get distracted here. It will all go away and your situation will once again be normal.

We'll get your SATA drive partitioned properly, if that's what you want to do. But we're not going to do it using DISKPART... you're going to use Partition Wizard, but only AFTER we get your Win7 properly installed (and or just running again) on your SSD like it was originally.

Patience is a virtue. What does your BIOS say is physically on your machine, as far as (a) hard drives, and (b) boot device sequence.

 

[narayanjr]

I tried the SSD on the all three sets of ports with the same results from each, the all produce the 0x80300024 error when I attempt to install windows. I also tried doing bootrec.exe again to repair the /FixMBR however this time instead of returning successful it returned errors. Also doing the /FixBoot returned "No drive found"

I will get my 2.5 external inclosure tomorrow and try and do the DISKPART on another computer and see what happens. If that doesnt work is it most likely that the drive is dead and I need to RMA it for a new one?

Thanks for all the help guys. I posted this on about 6 different sites and you are the only ones that have responded and you have been very helpful in getting closer to an answer.

*Edit* Give me a few min and ill get all that info, and explain the dvd drive thing.

 

[narayanjr]

Did you install from a Windows 7 installation DVD?

Yes, W7 was installed from a DVD. I used an external USB dvd drive.

So you had a DVD drive on the machine, as well as the SSD drive.

I had the SSD and a USB Dvd drive.

Huh?? A SECOND DVD drive?

It wasnt a second drive, I used a USB drive to install and just obtained the internal drive today.

Do you mean you now tried to install a second HARD DRIVE... e.g. say a 300GB SATA drive? To supplement your SSD SATA drive?

No, it was an DVD drive. I did however initially have my SSD and a WD drive installed. But I was able to install to my SSD just fine with both drives connected. Once W7 was up and running It recognized both drives fine.

*Edit* However when I did first install I had issue with windows installing. I first tried installing to my SSD, and it would error out, but did create the 100mb MSR. I tried a few more times. Then I attempted to install to the WD drive and got the same error. It again created another 100mb MSR partition. I then tried again on the SSD but it did not work. I ended up fixing it by removing 1 stick of ram and change the position of the other stick. Then I was able to install to my SSD without any problems. The ram was reinstalled after W7 was installed and everything still worked fine.

Again, I am most curious as to what your BIOS says right now... both for hard drives and also your boot device sequence.

Currently,
Boot Order:
1: P5: DVD Drive
2: P1: SSD
3: UEFI5: DVD Drive.

As for hard drives, I currently only have the SSD Installed into Intel Sata port 1.

I believe that was most of your questions.

 

[dsperber]

Did you install from a Windows 7 installation DVD?

Yes, W7 was installed from a DVD. I used an external USB dvd drive.

So you had a DVD drive on the machine, as well as the SSD drive.

I had the SSD and a USB Dvd drive.

It wasnt a second drive, I used a USB drive to install and just obtained the internal drive today.

I see.

I think your "couldn't find a required device" errors were perhaps due to the disappeared USB DVD drive which had been used as part of the original Win7 installation. Was that still connected after you completed the Win7 install and tried to install this genuine internal CD/DVD drive?

So there is no true SATA hard drive at all. But there is a WD hard drive in the story, but you're not going to retain it. You're simply going to end up with just the 128GB SSD drive, is that right?

So all you want is a machine that has a 128GB SSD drive (SATA), and a CD/DVD drive. Yes?


Here's what I recommend. Start over. You've now got your internal CD/DVD drive which can be used for the Win7 install, and the drive letter and device id seen by the Win7 installer will not disappear.

Forget whatever you've done. Forget the WD drive. Forget everything.


First, assuming you have another system from which you can download something, download Partition Wizard (free) Home Edition v5.2 from this page. You will install that on your Win7 system eventually.

Also, down toward the bottom of that same page there is a second download link (off to the right) for an ISO file from which you can burn a standalone boot CD for Partition Wizard. Download that ISO file, and burn it to a CD. You're going to boot from this CD and "cleanse" everything off of your SSD. Period.

I am assuming that the SSD doesn't come with its own special formatting utility or something, that it appears to be just another 128GB drive, so that Partition Wizard (booted from the CD) can simply see it and delete all partitions off of it, returning 100% of its capacity to free space.

But if there is some kind of "factory format" utility available from Crucial for the drive, maybe you should just run it and clean house for sure.


Once you return the SSD to pure unformatted form, now once again install Win7 to it. With the completely empty target drive and a constant lettered internal CD/DVD drive to install from, it should all proceed with no problem (as it did originally, as you described at the start of the story).

You will get the 100MB "system reserved" partition followed by the rest of the 128GB allocated to C, for Win7. This is fine for now. If you want to shrink C later and allocate a second D partition in the remainder of the 128GB you can use Partition Wizard to do that.

That's my suggestion.

P.S. - your BIOS settings for boot device sequence looks fine, but I assume the second DVD drive is the external USB device? Or is it no longer connected? Why don't you purge it from your BIOS list, if it is no longer going to be used.

 

[narayanjr]

You're simply going to end up with just the 128GB SSD drive, is that right?

I intend to have W7 installed on my SSD as well as a few applications, but I do need my 1TB WD drive as storage so I intend to have that also.

I will attempt the Partition Wizard again but I did try it once before and I got a few errors that I have posted previously in this thread. Ultimately I wasnt able to use it because after it booted it said it would not work on a "Windows Server" however I dont understand that as I downloaded the Bootable Windows 7 Home ISO. But I will try it again and see what I get.

As for the UEFI DVD Drive I have no idea what that is. It has the same name as the internal DVD drive it just has the UEFI in front of it. It is not the USB one.

 

[dsperber]

You're simply going to end up with just the 128GB SSD drive, is that right?

I intend to have W7 installed on my SSD as well as a few applications, but I do need my 1TB WD drive as storage so I intend to have that also.

Should be no problem. You can put it in the box now if you can, as I always like to do a cold install with all relevant hardware installed. That just seems to work better than adding additional hardware later... although I realize it should probably make zero difference for things like hard drives.

I will attempt the Partition Wizard again but I did try it once before and I got a few errors that I have posted previously in this thread. Ultimately I wasnt able to use it because after it booted it said it would not work on a "Windows Server" however I dont understand that as I downloaded the Bootable Windows 7 Home ISO.

I don't believe the error message pertains to the bootable CD you're running, or the hardware you're running on.

I think that error message is saying that the hardware formatting of the SSD hard drive that Partition Wizard is trying to analyze appears to be that of Windows Server, not of Win7 or the normal home Windows OS's (e.g. NTFS partitions, FAT32, etc., or unallocated free space but formatted according to intended use for a PC).

I wouldn't have thought Partition Wizard would have any problem dealing with an SSD drive... but that message suggests to me it thought it was not a normal PC-supported hard drive in its physical structure, "sector layout" etc.

That's why I questioned whether you had a "factory reset" utility from Crucial, to basically restore it to pure zero as you got it. If you do I'd strongly recommend using it.

Don't know. I don't have any firsthand SSD experience myself.