Installation problems

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nitz12

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 4, 2007
Messages
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I just purchased a new mobo and CPU to replace an existing setup running on XP. Every time it tried to boot, it would just stop and reboot. Had no idea how to resolve this.

Ended up buying a new Seagate 7200.12 500GB Barracuda and tried to do a completely fresh install of 64 bit version of Windows 7 RC2, which I had no problem installing on another machine previously. I go through setup, but when it comes time to select a hard drive to install, nothing is there and I have tried for 2 days to resolve this, including downloading SATA driver for Win7 from Gigabyte. All to no avail.

I would like to either get the first scenario running or the second one, I don't care which at this point. The new mobo is a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H and the CPU is an AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Callisto. I have 2GB Corsair DDR2 800 installed.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Your hard drive is SATA, right?

There are 2 different sets of SATA connectors on that motherboard.
Which one have you attached your hard drive to?

Is the hard drive recognized in the BIOS?
 
I tried both types of SATA connections on the mobo. It recognizes it because the volume appears for selection of boot order.
 
With the old drive, it never gets far enough for me to see if it is recognized, because it reboots before the OS loads. With the new drive, the BIOS sees it but Windows 7 doesn't. It keeps saying that I need to load drivers. I even downloaded the Win7 sata/chipset driver from gigabyte and put it on a flash drive, but even when I select the file, it says I don't have the hardware to support that, or something along those lines. So nothing ever works.
 
Disable AHCI in the BIOS and try again just to confirm.
If it still fails, the problem is somewhere else.
If it makes progress and let's you select the drive to install on during W7 install, it is the AHCI driver and you need to get the right driver. Or, just install with the AHCI disabled.
 
The only place I see AHCI is in the OnBoard SATA Type in the Integrated Peripherals. I've tried it with AHCI designated and also with Native IDE designated. I don't see a place where I can "disable" AHCI anywhere. Can you direct me?
 
First off, for the XP setup, you can't change the motherboard and cpu then boot to Windows XP. It will do exactly what you said it will do. You have to boot to the Windows XP CD then when it gets to the point to choose the install, select to install the OS over the old OS and it will ask you to repair it.

As for the why Windows 7 isn't seeing the HDD, I have no clue. But as the previous poster said, disable AHCI (if it's on) and see if that fixes it, even though it should see it even with it on. btw, you don't disable AHCI, it's either something that's on, or if it's off in native IDE mode.
 
Set it to IDE. That disables AHCI.
Attach the drive to any connector other than 4 and 5.
 
nitz12 said:
I've had it set to Native IDE and connected to SATA0 for most of the tries.
Click to expand...
Do you have a PATA drive?
Is the old drive PATA?
If yes, attach that to the motherboard and attempt a Windows 7 install on it. Does it let you select a drive and does it let you see the PATA drive?
If yes, just exit by clicking on the X at the top right corner of the window and exit the install so that you do not make any changes to the drive.
 
You said W7 did not recognize your SATA drive.
If it recognizes your PATA drive on the same motherboard, either your SATA drive is defective or you have set it up wrong (RAID setting).
If it does not recognize a PATA drive either, your motherboard may have a fundamental defect.

This is an investigation. You need to look for clues.
 
If I try the XP install and do the repair, will I lose data on that drive?
 
Do you have another computer with SATA? Connect your drive to it and see if you can see it from within the OS.

Did you ever reset the BIOS on the new motherboard?
 
nitz12 said:
If I try the XP install and do the repair, will I lose data on that drive?
Click to expand...
Do you have another computer that you can use to backup all the data first?
A repair install should not delete data. But, it is better to backup first.
 
MrF said:
Do you have another computer that you can use to backup all the data first?
A repair install should not delete data. But, it is better to backup first.
Click to expand...
The drive is partitioned but there are a couple things on the drive, plus didnt want to have to reinstall software.
 
MrF said:
Do you have another computer with SATA? Connect your drive to it and see if you can see it from within the OS.

Did you ever reset the BIOS on the new motherboard?
Click to expand...

The BIOS sees it. Win7 has an issue saying there are no drivers. When I select the driver file, it says "the specified location does not contain information about the hardware". The rest of the time, I usually get a "the subsystem needed to support the image type is not present" error.
 
I figured it out. Since Windows 7 was seeing the PATA HD and its partitions but not the SATA HD, for which it kept giving me 'no drivers' errors, since the SATA drive was new I thought I would try something. I was going to partition it anyway, so I popped in an XP disk on startup, let it do all its prelim loading and I then partitioned the drive. At that point I aborted the XP install and popped in the Win 7 disk and it installed flawlessly, recognizing the SATA drive and all partitions.
 
Not sure why Windows 7 DVD would not offer the same.
But, anyway, good job solving the problem.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
 
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