Comp under construction, need assistance. - by LancerChronics
LancerChronics on 28/8/2009 at 03:14
It's almost finished, and I finally hit a snag. The hard drive is in, with a sata cable. However, apparently a sata power cable was not included. I looked around my other boxes, and found one. It fits the hard drive just fine, but the Molex end of the adapter is a female end. It came with the motherboard. Am I just not seeing it, or do I need to buy a sata molex adapter. The power supply still has plenty of molex ends open.
LancerChronics on 28/8/2009 at 03:18
Nevermind, power unit had a sata connector. Please look below. *OH, and if I'm acting strange its because it is 1AM, I've spent the last 7 hours working on the computer, and I haven't had anything to eat or drink...
Maybe pics tomorrow. Need to get set up first.
LancerChronics on 28/8/2009 at 04:25
Err wait scratch that. Comp is finished being built, so I do have a question.
Software: What do I do first?
-BIOS?
-install an OS?
Q2: My copy of Win-Vista came with RC1 and a free upgrade. Do I need to have vista installed to get the upgrade or can I use the RC?
LancerChronics on 28/8/2009 at 17:31
Okay, now I really need help. Computer boots nicely. BIOS works and is formatted to correct date/time. I popped in the Windows disc and got part way through,then it asked which drive I would like to install to. I only have the one, but it can't seem to find it. Says I need to "select the proper driver" which seems to do nothing, I'm trying to use the drivers on the disc that came with the motherboard. When I try to select C:/ when looking for drivers. The computer says that I need to reformat it. I try to reformat and it says I can't. To check my cables (all in). And that my hard drive might be read only. I don't think it is though but I can't find the switch to prover. Need assistance.
The Motherboard is a Gigabyte MA790X-ID4P. The Hard drive is a Western Digital Caviar black 1TB. I'd love to get up and running today, so any help would be appreciated. Thx.
Note: I've been looking online for answers. One solution suggests that I set RAID to IDE in bios. My bios is already in IDE.
Note 2: I have gone and downloaded all SATA drivers related to my motherboard. Even the ones that show up as compatible don't seem to work. They pop up on the "select drivers" section, but when I select one and click "next". It load, and goes back to the previous screen that says I don't have a proper harddrive installed.
baeuchlein on 28/8/2009 at 20:37
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
I popped in the Windows disc and got part way through,then it asked which drive I would like to install to. I only have the one, but it can't seem to find it. Says I need to "select the proper driver" which seems to do nothing, I'm trying to use the drivers on the disc that came with the motherboard. When I try to select C:/ when looking for drivers. The computer says that I need to reformat it. I try to reformat and it says I can't.
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
Note 2: I have gone and downloaded all SATA drivers related to my motherboard. Even the ones that show up as compatible don't seem to work. They pop up on the "select drivers" section, but when I select one and click "next". It load, and goes back to the previous screen that says I don't have a proper harddrive installed.
If you have problems with drivers for your hard disk or the hard disk's controller, it is possible that you cannot format the drive.
I do not know Windows Vista, but when using XP and a hard disk controller whose driver is not included on the Windows installation CD-ROM, one had to press a key (F6, I think) when prompted to do so, shortly after starting the installation. Then, one had to insert a floppy disk with the driver on it into the floppy drive. Bad luck if you had no floppy drive.:tsktsk:
I do not know how these things are done when installing Vista, but perhaps it's done in a similar way there.
By the way, if C: is a partition on your
hard disk and you have not formatted your hard disk yet, there will be no drivers there either. It would make more sense to look on drive D:, E: and so on - if they exist. The latest one of them could be your CD or DVD drive, by the way. Again, I don't know how Vista handles these things.
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
The Hard drive is a Western Digital Caviar black 1TB.
That is a pretty large drive. Is it possible that Vista does not recognize drives that are "too big"? (I don't know the answer, it's just another suggestion.)
Something else... I think it's a "standard procedure" (here in the TTLG forums) to edit a previous post and add new information to it, rather than creating a new post directly below another one by the same author. While I don't know why exactly this is the case, I would recommend you do the same from now on. People here can be a bit sensitive for such a "violation". Of course, your next post in this thread will be a new one since it would not be directly below your previous posts - mine is in between.
LancerChronics on 28/8/2009 at 21:01
Yeah it was kind of my way of "bumping" the thread. It started out weird, where I had a problem, then fixed them myself, then asked them to delete the thread, then had another one so I edited out the request for deletion. The second and third post were to draw peoples attention again if they had read the "Solved-please delete" portion. Second post was completely redone.
ANYWAY, update: Vista does not have an F6 option, USB is supposed usable for transferring drivers, no I do not have a floppy. May be a mistake on my part, but why spend $30 on something no one uses anymore?
Now, you may be correct on the format thing. I try to click on it for drivers, even if I know that there is nothing on there. The installation asks if I would like to format it. I click "Yes". Then the installation states that I cannot format it. Check all connector cable....check. Check all power cables.....check (I can here it spinning sometimes. "Your hard drive might also be in Read-Only, please turn this off before attempting to format your drive". I have NO idea on how to do that.
My Vista is the 64bit version only, OEM version. I think the hard drive was OEM too because to came with no cables or software. I have all the necessary drivers on my USB, I can access them. I can select the compatible one in the installation. But when I select them. It loads them and goes right back to saying it cannot detect the harddrive.
So my question is: How do I turn off "Read-Only" on my hard drive? That is the only thing I can think of left to do... I really don't want to RMA it :(
Or how do I format outside of the Vista installation?
Enchantermon on 28/8/2009 at 22:14
You could connect the drive into another computer either internally or externally and format it that way. I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on the net, just hit up Google.
baeuchlein on 28/8/2009 at 23:00
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
update: Vista does not have an F6 option, USB is supposed usable for transferring drivers, no I do not have a floppy. May be a mistake on my part, but why spend $30 on something no one uses anymore?
Hey, mister,
I'm still using that sometimes...:ebil:
;) Just a joke, although I
really use this ancient stuff sometimes, but that's changing slowly. And I would not recommend buying a floppy drive unless you really, really need it, which does not appear to be the case. It's just that Windows
XP only accepted floppy disks at that particular point of the installation process, and I don't know anything about Vista.
And if Vista recognizes whatever you plug into your USB port and can copy drivers from that, that's okay. Now if the drivers would only
work...:tsktsk:Seems to be the problem here, I think.
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
you may be correct on the format thing. I try to click on it for drivers, even if I know that there is nothing on there. The installation asks if I would like to format it. I click "Yes". Then the installation states that I cannot format it.
So, you try to get the drivers from your hard disk, then try to format this disk? I don't think that will work. You need to get the drivers from your USB stick (or whatever is plugged into your USB connector). If the drivers find the hard disk, you should then be able to format it. Unfortunately, that does not seem to work.:(
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
"Your hard drive might also be in Read-Only, please turn this off before attempting to format your drive". I have NO idea on how to do that.
I only have some faint ideas. "Read-Only" is not a common thing when using hard disks.
One possibility would be a jumper on the hard disk itself. Most of the time, jumper descriptions are found on a sticker on the hard drive, and in many cases you can find the descriptions on the hard disk manufacturer's home page as well - just in case you don't want to open the computer case and get out that hard drive again for just a look at this sticker...;) However, a read-only jumper is a very uncommon thing, as far as I know.
Another possibility would be in BIOS setup. Unfortunately, there are several places in the BIOS setup menus where this option might be located. At least it's usually called "Hard disk write protect" or "Hard disk access mode: Read-only", and not something obscure. However, even this kind of "read-only" mode for hard disks is very uncommon, if you ask me.
I think there is no problem with any "read-only" thing here. Somehow, the hard disk controller drivers (SATA in this case) are not properly recognized, I believe. Or maybe the drivers somehow cannot properly access the hard disk, which might just be a problem with the
drivers and not the drive.
If everything else fails, try finding out the hard disk model. Maybe it's some Western Digital WD08154711 or whatever. It should be displayed before the computer tries to boot, and it might even be displayed in one of the BIOS setup menus. A sticker on top of your hard disk should also contain the hard disk model.
Once you have that, try Google with search terms like "formatting", "Vista 64-bit" and "Installation" as well as the hard disk model, maybe even your mainboard model. Maybe someone else has already had this problem.
Quote Posted by LancerChronics
Or how do I format outside of the Vista installation?
This is possible only with another operating system which can properly access the hard disk. You could put the disk into another computer which has SATA connectors, and then partition and format the disk.
If that's not possible, an operating system starting from a CD or DVD could partition and format the disk even in the computer in which it is sitting now. I have only had experience with Linux based CDs in this case, but I heard rumors of CDs and DVDs which can boot at least a Windows XP from the DVD drive.
For Linux, something like the (
http://www.sysresccd.org/) System Rescue CD should help. Click on the link to read more and download the CD image. However, if you have never used Linux before, it may be very difficult to tell you how to format your drive. But if everything else fails...
Brian The Dog on 29/8/2009 at 00:24
For your motherboard, one problem may be that Gigabyte list (
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ProductID=3038&ost=windows+vista+x64+%2864-bit%29#anchor_os) two drivers (I think you put a spelling mistake in your first post, Gigabyte only list MA790X-UD4P). Choose the SATA RAID driver that is 0.36Mb in size, and put the files you download into the root directory of your Flash drive. There should be an .inf file there - this is the one Vista is looking for, and it should be in the root directory of your flash drive. I guess it depends on whether you're running your hard drives as SATA or SATA2 in the BIOS.
You may be able to format your hard drive to NTFS from a Ubuntu live-cd, but I'd recommend using the (
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html) Ultimate Boot CD - when prompted on booting from it, go to Hard Drive utilities, choose the manufacturer of the hard drive, and you can format it using their software.
LancerChronics on 29/8/2009 at 14:11
Thank you, thank you both. Yesterday was a pain in the ass because I couldn't find any answers. I used the Ultimate boot disc program, and as soon as I ran the WD discsaver, It said "Your drive is not ready for use yet. Would you like to fix this?". YES!
Now windows is currently installing. I will post any other potential problems that show up in this same thread. Thx again!
Edit: Good afternoon folks. This is LancerChronics coming to you live from New Computer 2009! New problem..... Monitor has a optimum resolution at 1920 x 1080, but vista will only let me select 4:3 ratio resolutions. How would I fix this? Thx!
