WIN7 64bit cannot find system drive

[agesilaus]

I have a new (replacement for a failed drive) Hitachi 500GB HDD that I'm trying to install win7 64 bit on (full install disk). I have Win XP 32 on drive D: of another drive and want to dual boot. I used PMagic to partition the new drive into 2 250 GB partitions, the first as C: drive, active and primary---formatted NTFS. Thinking I would install on that partition. When I run install on Win7 64 I get to the window where you can select upgrade or custom and I select custom install and select the c: drive. I then get a cannot find a system drive error message. I went bak and removed the partitions thinking maybe it would work on unallocated drive space---same error message. I deleted the partition inside win7 from the same screen and formated it there too and still get the same message. Diagnostics show that the drive is good. What am I doing wrong? Thanks BK

 

[gregrocker]

The problem may be that Win7 will configure the Dual Boot making the previous Win7 installation System Active drive holding the MBR, while the new Win7 drive will be simply Boot Primary.

Let's make sure the incorrect Active formatting (Partition Magic isn't compatible with Win7 64 bit, I believe) which was applied to the new drive is wiped completely clean.

Boot into Win7 DVD Repair console, open a Command line and type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for new Windows 7 HD)
clean
exit

Now boot back into the DVD, select Custom install, use Drive tools to create New partition(s) as you wish, format and install Win7 to the first partition on your new drive.

If the error repeats, please note exact wording, then enter BIOS setup to check that the new HD is registering and the exact setting for SATA controller for both drives.

 

[agesilaus]

The real problem

It seems that win7 will not install on a system with a dynamic disk. Once I converted that to a basic disk the install worked. BK