Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech Win 7 / XP / Vista install no recognise hdd

He has a 320gb HDD Western Digital Blue

Go into Bios or even Boot manager if you have it F8 or F12 on start up and boot straight from DVD, windows doesn't always recognize sata drives that's the trouble.

Reading back Deano am thinking its a bad copy of Windows, try reburning it at a slower speed.

Tried to edit my last post "timed out"
If you have partitioned for XP Vista and then Seven it has to go in that order old then new if I remember right

SCSI drivers etc are not required on a laptop (have you seen the size of SCSI drives lol).

Im thinking this could be one of a few things, I know on NT5 OS's on certain mobo's you had to press F6 to enable AHCI when the Windows Setup was loading, otherwise it would not see hard drives. Never come across this problem on NT6 mind you.

If you're using the disc I gave you, that isn't bad, I'm using my laptop with it now, only burnt it a few weeks back so I could a clean install of Windows instead of an manufacturer install.

It could also be a defective component, given the bluescreens you've been having etc with setup, possibly a memory module/slot.

If you're still stuck mate, I will take a look at it for you, bring the diagnostics kit home from work with me, or can have a look at it on the bench in work tomorrow night and get it back to you first thing Monday morning.

Let me know if you need any more help.

I took the drive back, bought a 250gb cheapie from ebay for £24 and it worked like a charm. No hassle at all.

Sold the laptop now and bought a new one!! Will get your DVD Drive back to you this weekend mate.

Cheers.

Sound, glad you got it sorted, shame you lost faith in the laptop but onwards and upwards eh?!