Wi7 won't detect HDD during setup

[pvtbones]

so I got all of the hardware side figured out, but windows doesn't detect my western digital 500G caviar black HDD (brand new) I've hooked the drive up to the home xp desktop down stairs and it detected fine

I have absolutely no idea.

 

[No Limit]

What kind of motherboard?

 

[unozero]

did u activate it in Computer Management?

 

[pvtbones]

the motherboard is Gigabyte ga-ma785gm-us2h brand new.

@unozero, activate it in computer management? is that a bios setting ???

 

[VirusType2]

It's a SATA drive right? Is this the only HDD hooked up to the new computer?

 

[unozero]

the motherboard is Gigabyte ga-ma785gm-us2h brand new.

@unozero, activate it in computer management? is that a bios setting ???

computer management under programs should pop up when u type in the search window

 

[VirusType2]

Yeah, the drive needs to be formatted and set as a basic volume.

I assumed this was the only drive, and he was trying to install Windows on it. In that case, the Windows installer would have formatted it and set it as basic (and active/system volume).

 

[pvtbones]

it's sata and the only harddrive. the entire machine is brand new parts.

how would the best way to format it? hook it up to another machine?

 

[VirusType2]

Why can't you just put the Windows DVD in the drive and install the OS on your new HDD? What does it say/do to prevent you? It does not detect the HDD? Then you need to check the SATA and SATA Power connections and make sure you have your BIOS settings set correctly.

 

[pvtbones]

I've been trying it gets to the screen where windows wants to know where to install (partition etc.) and nothing shows up. kind of hard to install the os when the bios sees it but it doesn't -.-

pretty sure the physical connection is good.

 

[VirusType2]

EDIT: apparently, I don't read well when I've been drinking alcohol. Oh well, I'll just leave what I had written:


You haven't answered, so I'll assume you haven't set up your BIOS yet. That should be the first step after a new build. Checking to be sure CPU temperatures are normal, etc.

Some BIOS will not automatically recognize new HDDs, and you need to access the BIOS and set it up every time you add a new drive.

That also means you haven't set your RAM timings and things like that. The proper RAM timings could be on the RAM label or on the box it came in, or you may have to use the web.

You should also set up your CPU fan. When it's new, you could run it faster than normal. Don't forget to break in your CPU. (the thermal paste)


I don't know what to tell you. Probably need to call MS, or format the drive on another computer. Have you followed the installer instructions carefully? There may be a point where you hold a particular key in order to set up a HDD.

 

[No Limit]

Does the hard drive actually show up in the bios? There is a chance you have the sata port its hooked up to disabled. You can also try a different port.

Also even though this a sata drive and usually jumpers are not required you might want to give it a try. Set the jumpers on the drive to primary.

Finally, on cheaper mother boards turning off the parrallel port might do wonders for you, try that too.

Sorry I'm giving you a laundry list of troubleshooting steps, not really one thing you can point to at this time.

 

[VirusType2]

SATA drives don't have jumpers, homie.

er - ok, maybe they do. I never noticed, or used them.

Serial ATA interface disk drives are designed for easy installation. It is not necessary to set any jumpers, terminators, or other settings on this drive for proper operation. The jumper block adjacent to the SATA interface connector on SATA 150MB/s drives is for factory use only. The jumper block adjacent to the SATA interface connector on SATA 300MB/s drives can be used to force the drive into SATA 150MB/s mode for use with older SATA controllers that only work with SATA 150MB/s drives.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=2b089d2c3c90e010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

the motherboard is Gigabyte ga-ma785gm-us2h brand new.

5 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 5 SATA 3Gb/s devices

http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=3143

You're fine.

 

[No Limit]

AKA exactly what I said, next time you can just take my word for it homie . And he's not fine as its obviously not working, try the jumpers.

 

[No Limit]

Also one thing, I am making the assumption this is a new build and you never had this mobo running. Is that right?

 

[pvtbones]

did see any option for disabling parrallel ports (just different methods to use). haven't checked the jumpers yet but the HDD is in sata 1 and the dvd driver is in sata 5. the bios does detect the HDD, pretty sure it is not disabled.

I took a bunch of pictures of the all the things I see in my bios but I'll be damned if my cell phone wants to connect to my laptop -.-

virus please clarify on what you mean of the installer instructions.

 

[No Limit]

The parrallel port would usually be under peripherals or on board devices. And even though you don't seem to have one of these on your board the option is still there a lot of times. Though in your case it might not be.

You can change the port of the hard drive, try putting it in sata 4.

If your bios recognizes your HD I dont know why windows wouldn't, did you change any bios settings? Loading back to factory optimized factory defaults might be worthwhile.

Under the windows 7 installation there will be a driver installation or something like that option. Maybe you have the hard drive controller drivers on the cd that came with the motherboard, might wanna try installing those.

 

[pvtbones]

I put it in a different sata slot (was in 1 now in 3) actually I noticed something my layout for the sata ports goes 0 -4 might that mean anything?

as far as the bios is concerned I've touched two things the boot order the if it was native ide or achi (have no tried raid since it's only 1 drive) and everything in this computer is new I got it yesterday literally lol

I did find the parrallel port section, but it has no option to disable (just different forms)

 

[pvtbones]

I tried putting the cd that I got with the mobo and browsing for drivers in it all I found were a bunch of uncompatible xraid_i.inf

 

[No Limit]

So changing ports didnt accomplish anything? Most times when dealing with computers things are labelled starting at 0, not 1. So this is normal.

You made the native ide change after you tried installing windows and it didnt work or was there another reason for it?

It should have an option to disable that parrallel port, too bad I can't see your bios screen.

 

[pvtbones]

I get the same issue with either native ide mode or ahci mode.

T_T

 

[No Limit]

Can you do factory defaults and see what happens? Dont even change the boot order, since the hard drive isnt bootable it should try booting from the cd automatically.

 

[pvtbones]

so I tried hooking it up to the desktop in the living room that runs xp. tried quick formatting it to NTSF (or whatever it is can't recall offhand) and it gave me an error saying "windows unable to complete this format"

????

 

[pvtbones]

Can you do factory defaults and see what happens? Dont even change the boot order, since the hard drive isnt bootable it should try booting from the cd automatically.

setting it to ahci I getgetting the error after verifying DMI pool data :

NTLDR is missing
press ctrl alt del to restart

leaving it at native IDE I get a disk read error has occured

 

[No Limit]

Starting to sound like it might be a bad hard drive since it's doing it in 2 different computers. Do you have another sata drive you could just plug in and see if it identifies the drive?

Do you have a XP installation CD laying around? You can also see if you can install xp on the new machine on this drive.

 

[pvtbones]

Starting to sound like it might be a bad hard drive since it's doing it in 2 different computers. Do you have another sata drive you could just plug in and see if it identifies the drive?

Do you have a XP installation CD laying around? You can also see if you can install xp on the new machine on this drive.

the only contact it's had with another computer is a attempted quick format.

unfortunately the xp disks are not around.

tried hooking it back up to the other desktop to try a full on format and now it shows the drive having 811GB of space (for a 500?!)

 

[No Limit]

Thats what I mean, its having issues in 2 different computers.

The other computer you put it in has its own sata drive I assume. Can you take that drive to your new set up and see if it will recognize that drive in the windows installation (obviously dont format this drive or anything).

 

[pvtbones]

unfortunately the owner of that other computer isn't comfortable let me borrow that drive which is fair has a bunch of company stuff on it so can't blame em.

 

[No Limit]

If I had to guess your HD is messed up (cpt obvious, right?). Try the jumper when you can.

 

[StarBob]

Too lazy to read everything. Did you check the jumpers? If it's on master, try auto detect or whatever.. and if it's on auto detect try master. It's prolly a bad HD though...

 

[VirusType2]

AKA exactly what I said, next time you can just take my word for it homie . And he's not fine as its obviously not working, try the jumpers.

Oh, I'm sorry, No Limit. Forgive me, I had assumed you were just making a simple mistake thinking it was EIDE.

I'd never heard of jumpers on SATA drives. I've only bought OEM drives, so now I'm guessing the actual jumper is not included.

I just did some research to learn about SATA and jumpers. It seems you may need to use a jumper when using a SATAII HDD with an old SATAI motherboard. I say "may", because I've used SATA II drives on SATA I motherboard with no problems and no jumpers. (hence why I had never heard of this before)

Never the less, I hear that "the only thing you lose is command queuing support" when you use the jumper, because the speed won't be limited -

As of April 2009 mechanical hard disk drives can transfer data at up to 131 MB/s,[8] which is within the capabilities of the older PATA/133 specification. However, high-performance flash drives can transfer data at up to 201 MB/s.[9] SATA 1.5 Gbit/s does not provide sufficient throughput for these drives.

Ah, here's something more:

Given the importance of backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbit/s controllers and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices, SATA 3 Gbit/s autonegotiation sequence is designed to fall back to SATA 1.5 Gbit/s speed when in communication with such devices. In practice, some older SATA controllers do not properly implement SATA speed negotiation. Affected systems require the user to set the SATA 3 Gbit/s peripherals to 1.5 Gbit/s mode, generally through the use of a jumper, however some drives lack this jumper. Chipsets known to have this fault include the VIA VT8237 and VT8237R southbridges, and the VIA VT6420, VT6421A and VT6421L standalone SATA controllers.[10] SiS's 760 and 964 chipsets also initially exhibited this problem, though it can be rectified with an updated SATA controller ROM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

But as I pointed out, his motherboard is SATA II. His hard drive is SATA II. So that's why I said, "he's fine". I just don't see a reason to run it in SATA I mode.

Anyway, what I would do, is simply hook up the HDD to another computer [again] and try running a diagnostics. WD Data Lifeguard tools are available free from WD's website.

 

[No Limit]

The point with the jumper is you are troubleshooting. When you run in to an issue like this you wanna try as many different hardware (and software) combinations as possible, in this case its very easy to put a jumper on. That eliminates different variables even if that turns out not to be the issue.

 

[VirusType2]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to double-guess you. It's usually something stupid anyway, like a wire not plugged in correctly, isn't it? So, the more trouble-shooting ideas the better. I would have never said anything, I simply thought you were making a mistake with regards to EIDE, and the classic Slave/Master issue.