Windows 7 setup does not recognize my hard drives!

[Dorr404]

I have been trying to install a copy of an x86 version of Windows 7 Ultimate for weeks. For some reason when I first installed it It did not recognize my hard drives. I was ok with the upgrade at first (from Windows Vista Ultimate) but along with the disk space it is taking up from windows.old, I want a clean copy. When I go in the setup, click install, and go to the Custom Install tab, no hard drives or partitions show up. I have tried installing drivers from the Western Digital site, to no avail.

My Specs:

Two 80gb Wd800JD Western Digital Caviar blue's.
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe mobo
Athlon dual core 4800
Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX

The ultimate question I am trying to get answered is how do I get a my hard drives to show up on the setup and finally get to my destination of having one partition, with my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate on it?

This is the information of the hard drives and where I tried to download the drivers to allow the installation to work: WD Support > Installation > SATA & SAS > WD Caviar SE / SE16 (SATA I)

I tried to load the drivers at the installation and apparently they were not the correct ones, although the most recent ones I could find were for WinXP.

I am getting frustrated with Windows 7! I also have a problem where I am not sure If my video card is working properly or not, but that is another issue that I have posted on that the advice I received did not work..

Thank you for your time in reading this. I appreciate any input to my problems.

 

[Saltgrass]

Are you doing a RAID install?

Are you booting from the DVD?

If you can't get it to work, unplug one of the drives to see if it will work on one. I know there are sometimes problems if you put 2 clean drives in the system, but it sounds like you have already written to at least one.

 

[gregrocker]

Is the SATA controller set to AHCI in the BIOS?

Enter BIOS at bootup by tapping F-key given for BIOS Setup on first screen.

While there make sure DVD is set to boot first, followed by the HD you wish to install to.

Then boot from DVD and attempt install again.

 

[Dorr404]

Thank you for the quick responses!

Yes, I am booting from DVD, and I have tried to install the RAID drivers because no partitions or anything show up in the Windows7 setup screen. Thats why I went hunting for the correct RAID drivers but everyone I tried to load in there did not work.

These are not clean hard drives. I had Windows Vista Ultimate on them, then I had to upgrade to 7 because I could not get the clean install to work. So they are most cluttered. I would be happy If I could just wipe them both clean, delete partitions, etc. Then make one partition with just Windows 7 on it. Bottom line - I want everything gone! Save Nothing! Fresh Copy!

I will check the BIOS when I get home later this afternoon.

Thank you all for the help.

 

[haxcid]

When you are prompted to add drivers for sata controllers try the 32 bit or 64 bit of that, depending if you are running 32 or 64. Those are the drivers for the controller running on that motherboard.

Silicon Image - Support | Search Results

Or you can try one of the various drivers listed here

Microsoft Update Catalog

The second link is Microsofts data base of sata controller drivers for your motherboard. It may take many trys but the right driver is there, you just have to find it and it can be a pain doing so.

 

[gregrocker]

Why do you want RAID? Is that the legacy setup of your mobo?

RAID is old technology completely redundant now with drive imaging built into Win7.

Every RAID issue here is a problem with Win7 install.

Can you get out of the RAID in BIOS then try your install? Set SATA controller to AHCI.

Also, on the downloads page in your WD Caviar link is Data Lifeguard dos CD. Burn to CD and run the full diagnostics on both HD, then use Full zeroing to clean your drives best.

Boot from installer and format when you get that RAID crap out.

 

[haxcid]

Why do you want RAID? Is that the legacy setup of your mobo?

RAID is old technology completely redundant now with drive imaging built into Win7.

Every RAID issue here is a problem with Win7 install.

Can you get out of the RAID in BIOS then try your install? Set SATA controller to IHCI.

Also, on the downloads page in your WD Caviar link is Data Lifeguard dos CD. Burn to CD and run the full diagnostics on both HD, then use Full zeroing to clean your drives best.

Boot from installer and format when you get that RAID crap out.

Most older motherboards do not offer that feature. I have several sata motherboards that do not offer IDE Mode. The silicon image 3114 sata controller is an older sata controller and is not supported during the windows 7 installation, at least on the boards I have tried. Drivers are also a pain to find because support ceased with Vista, but the drivers you download for vista do not work in windows 7. I have had to get them from Microsofts catalog.

Also he is transposing the term raid for sata. What he meant to say was he was trying to install the sata driver because the installation process is not seeing any drives and often the controllers raid and sata driver are the same.

 

[gregrocker]

Got it. Shouldn't it prompt for those SATA drivers, or could it be another issue with HD's not detected during install?

 

[Dorr404]

Ok, as far as trying to install those Silicon Image drivers, Windows setup still did not recognize my hardware. However, I do have some new information that may or may not be useful:

In the bios the first through fourth SATA master is set to none, there are only two options when you try to change it, that is none and auto, I did not see anything about IHCI. Primary IDE Master and Slave are also set to none.

Under the Onboard Config tab of my bios there is an option labeled Silicon SATA that is enabled, and when the computer fires up I caught this bit of info:
SIL 3114 BIOS VERSION 5.1.39

I don't know if this is any help to my conundrum. The search continues...

You all have been magnificent help so far, and thank you for your time.

 

[Dorr404]

Microsoft is still of no help. I can not get my problems solved. I would rather downgrade to Vista if I cannot get this to work. I was informed on another topic that my motherboard was "too old" for Windows 7 (my mobo is an asus a8n sli-deluxe). I want to just go back to vista. I still have my windows.old folder as I could not format in the first place. Anyone have any ideas to point me in the right direction? I tried following a sticky on this site for formatting a drive and I still could not get it to work, and I am running out of patience with Microsoft's customer support, and their products.

Love,

A crabby Microsoft product owner.

 

[gregrocker]

Ok, as far as trying to install those Silicon Image drivers, Windows setup still did not recognize my hardware. However, I do have some new information that may or may not be useful:

In the bios the first through fourth SATA master is set to none, there are only two options when you try to change it, that is none and auto, I did not see anything about IHCI. Primary IDE Master and Slave are also set to none.

If those SATA and IDE drives are occupied and their controllers are set to None instead of Auto then you may have found your problem.

Try setting the Sata and IDE controllers to auto.

Also, did you unzip and copy the Silicon drivers which were provided earlier in thread onto a flash stick or CD and load them into installer on the Custom drives screen link (the screen where your HD's should show up, drivers link at bottom left). You need to browse through the folders until the installer finds the drivers to load.

Microsoft is still of no help. I can not get my problems solved. I would rather downgrade to Vista if I cannot get this to work. I was informed on another topic that my motherboard was "too old" for Windows 7 (my mobo is an asus a8n sli-deluxe). I want to just go back to vista. I still have my windows.old folder as I could not format in the first place. Anyone have any ideas to point me in the right direction? I tried following a sticky on this site for formatting a drive and I still could not get it to work, and I am running out of patience with Microsoft's customer support, and their products.

You might as well try formatting the HD first before giving up and rolling back to Vista.

Boot into the Win7 DVD, select Repair My COmputer on second screen, then in Recovery Tools open a Command Line and type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for target disk)
clean all ("all" zeroes the drive, much fuller format)
create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c:
active
format
exit


Here's the tutorial from MS for rolling back to Vista using the windows.old folder below.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971760

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, Just in case you do not yet have it working. I will assume you are intentionally running a raid setup. If you have been running raid in Vista, some things will have already been done.

The raid controller may have to be turned on in the bios.

When you boot, you may see a RAID setup screen which you might need to get into for setting your disks for a RAID array.

Windows should load the normal IDE SATA drivers during the install and you will probably need to load the RAID matrix drivers when allowed. It probably needs an .inf file to look at, but I have never installed RAID drivers. Some manufacturers supply a download of just the drivers needed during an install for use like this.

You said the drives had been used, so you did not wipe them and need them re-initialized?

Have you changed any connectors on the motherboard? Some boards have two controllers. The fact you show no hard drives in the bios is not a good sign and if you have them plugged into the wrong controller, they may not work correctly.

Gregrocker meant AHCI, not IHCI, and the setting should be for an RAID/external controller, or for you primary drives where you set IDE/RAID/ACHI, depending on your motherboard choices.

If you can't get it to work, try just one drive at a time to see what happens. Then you would at least know if Win 7 was having problems with your hardware.

 

[Dorr404]

I am guessing that Windows7 does not recognize the hardware. Everything is plugged in the same as it was. I tried booting to the repair computer screen as specified above, but It does not recognize any hard drives or partitions, so there is nothing to select. Recently, i was cleaning up my computer, deleted my windows.old folder, and my computer blue screened, and now it will not boot into windows.

I know I have asked this before, but is there any way to wipe the hard drive without it recognizing any of the partitions that are currently on there? I know it is a long shot, but now I cannot even get into windows, I need to reformat bad, and I cannot get anything in Windows to see that it has partitions that it is currently running off of!

Thank you all for your time.

 

[gregrocker]

I know I have asked this before, but is there any way to wipe the hard drive without it recognizing any of the partitions that are currently on there? I know it is a long shot, but now I cannot even get into windows, I need to reformat bad, and I cannot get anything in Windows to see that it has partitions that it is currently running off of!

Repeating:

Boot into the Win7 DVD, select Repair My COmputer on second screen, then in Recovery Tools open a Command Line and type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for target disk)
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c:
active
format
exit

 

[Dorr404]

There is some confusion. That's what I was talking about. When I type LISTDISK, nothing shows up.

 

[Tews]

Try LIST (space) DISK and see what happens..

 

[Road11]

Actually, I am having the same problem. When I type LIST DISK it says "There are no fixed disks to show".

 

[gregrocker]

Check the BIOS settings for your SATA controller. Try AHCI or IDE.

Does the HD show up there?

If not, check jumpers and cable connections. Set jumper to master with only one drive on ribbon.

 

[Road11]

I've tried both IDE and AHCI, no difference. I doubt it's the cables seeing as I am on a Acer 6920g, and I haven't touched any of the cables.

The HD does not show up in the BIOS.

 

[ccatlett1984]

If the hard drives dont show up in the bios, you have bigger issues. Like a possible dead drive.

Pull the cables from one of the drives and see if the bios will see the drive, if it does then continue with the windows install.