Member Avatar for thenotsothinman

My Vista PC crashed and I had to format my hard drive. Now I can't get Vista install to see the hd. It shows up in the bios. It also works for storage if I use it as a secondary drive with both Vista or XP installed on a master drive. Also I was able to get XP SP3 installed on the drive. The hd is an SATA. I have tried getting the updated drives for hd and the motherboard but I really don't know what I should be looking for. My goal is to dual boot with Vista on the hd in question witch is 250GB and XP on my other 30GB drive so I can use my camcorder that is not compatible with Vista but that is a secondary concern. I would just like to get vista to install on the 250GB hd if anyone can help me.

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Dani AI

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Additional troubleshooting for (and thanks to for the single-drive test). Given the steps already tried, the problem most often comes down to the motherboard's SATA/controller mode or a missing mass‑storage driver during Vista setup — not a faulty disk. The practical approach is to force the installer onto the chipset it understands or supply the correct driver at install time.

Try these targeted steps in order:

  • In BIOS, change the SATA controller mode to IDE/Compatibility (or disable RAID/AHCI) and retry the Vista installer. If the installer sees the drive in IDE mode, install Vista and then install the proper AHCI/RAID drivers later.
  • If changing BIOS mode is not desirable, place the motherboard/chipset SATA driver (INF + SYS) on a USB stick and use the Vista installer’s "Load Driver" option (or the F6 method where applicable) so setup can use the correct driver for that controller.
  • Swap the SATA cable and use a different onboard SATA port (prefer the ports controlled by the main chipset, not any add-on controller). Disable any secondary SATA controller in BIOS while installing. Update the motherboard BIOS if an update addresses storage compatibility.

If the installer still refuses to see the disk, a safe disk wipe and repartition from the installer Command Prompt can help (this destroys all data):

Shift+F10
diskpart
list disk
select disk X   (verify the size)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick
active
exit

Finally, obtain the exact motherboard model and SATA chipset (Intel/AMD/Marvell, etc.) to download the vendor storage driver. Those drivers are the usual missing piece when Vista setup cannot detect a perfectly good SATA disk.

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Member Avatar for cguan_77

have you checked the jumper settings of your Hard drive? try connecting only the 250gb and removing the other one.. check if vista will be able to detect your hdd...

Member Avatar for thenotsothinman

Thanks for responding. If I only connect the 250gb hd vista installer will not recognize any hd to install. As for the jumper, it doesn't have one but it never did. The pc is custom built and came with vista installed. I have e-mail the guys that I got the pc from but have not heard anything back.

Member Avatar for cguan_77

have you tried booting using win xp cd, just to check whether it can recognize the hd?

try to download UBCD4WIN... check if it will help
http://www.ubcd4win.com/

Member Avatar for thenotsothinman

I have installed XP SP3 on the hdd and it work fine. I have even connected the hdd to a pc running vista and it is recognized and can be used as storage, but Vista installer still does recognize it.

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