Trying to install Win 8 on my HDD afer my SSD died.

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thatdamheathen

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I woke up this morning to find that my SSD had died. Since I do not have the funds right now I have decided to load windows 8 onto my HDD. However, this has not gone as smoothly as hoped. I either get one of two errors when I try to install windows 8 onto my HDD. The first says something along the lines of "we cannot install windows on this drive or make a partition" or "this computers hardware does not support booting to this disk. Check you BIOS to ensure your disk is in the boot order".

I have tried several solutions including using commands to create a partition and ensuring that the HDD was listed first in my BIOS. Nothing has worked so far. My HDD is in ACHL mode as is my optic disk drive. I also noticed that my optic drive is listed twice in my BIOS boot menu with different modes attached.

Does anyone have any solutions or a fix? I have been looking for hours and haven't turned up anything. Your help and time is appreciated.
 
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drwho1

drwho1

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I would unplug all drives except the optical drive and the HD that you want to install the OS.
Then go to BIOS and make sure they are in the order that you want (usually optical drive FIRST and HD second).

Do you have another computer where you can test your SSD?
 
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thatdamheathen

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I tried all of your suggestions and still get an error saying: windows cannot be installed on this disk because your hardware does not support booting from this disk. please check your disc controllers"
 
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drwho1

drwho1

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in your BIOS, is your SATA controller setup "normal" or RAID?
make sure that it is normal. (I personally do NOT use RAID but at least for now it should be "normal")

Also if you can download http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
^this is a bootable CD disk (you need to make/burn a CD) follow instructions
I had a hard drive that was completely dead and was able to "revived" with this, it took a long time, but it works. (I still use that drive for storage)
but WARNING I lost ALL data in the process. Since I was not able to read/access the drive what I lost was not as important as been able to use it again.
 
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Jeremy Williams

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If the drive is not clean already you may be receiving this message as there is no more free unallocated space on that disk in order to create the BCD records.

Also if this was originally a UEFI install you won't be able to install to that drive properly without changing the UUID which is nice and annoying... I didn't want to try that so I broke my 2TB RAID 0 to install Win 8 onto my single SSD. I would suggest avoiding the UEFI boot option from your boot menu which will commonly show on Asus BIOS Boot Device List like this: UEFI: device name .. where as your legacy and generally less headache option is just the device name.

Just to be clear this is not a Windows 8 issue, this is a technologies used issue.

Overall if data retention is not a concern, wipe the drive and start with a fresh install, I prefer to use the diskpart clean command as it also de-initializes the disk. Which would allow you to set different partition tables (MBR/GPT/). But don't worry about GPT unless you're attempting to create a bootable partition size greater than 2.2TB
 
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thatdamheathen

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update: I used the clean command so now the disk is showing on the install screen with 930GB free. However, I am still getting the message saying " this computers hardware may not support booting to to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.


I have checked and my controllers are set to enabled
 
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Jeremy Williams

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inzone, I' am sorry to say that is incorrect. AHCI will make you Sata 3gbps and 6gbps drdives operate at those speeds as well as let them use NCQ to extend the life of the disk.

Z77 chipset AHCI drivers are part of the windows installer pacakge so that you can read an AHCI controller from NT 6 and up.

after cleaning the HDD you will have to restart the machine and the installer for the disk to be properly usable by it... like the old days fdisk to create the partition, restart then format it, restart now install.

Also check your boot options for the Windows Boot Manager, if that is still in your BIOS you haven't wiped the BCD that is being read when the installer loads. If your SSD is still connected and it was the bootmgr drive, and doesn't have that wiped, then it will still attempt to use that as the bootloader.
You may also be able to work around it by manually editing your BIOS's Boot device options, remove/disable the option of the Windows Boot Manager... though in my experience if that's there then the BCD is there and screws with the install
 
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inzone

inzone

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You find it in the bios under the Advanced tab and it may say sata controllers or hard drive controller depending on what brand of motherboard you have. My Asus board says Asmedia storage controller for the sata ports that are controlled by the Asmedia chip and it gives two options IDE and AHCI. The ones controlled by the Intel chipset it says Sata Configuration and it gives three options, IDE, SATA and RAID.
 
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Jeremy Williams

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Are you creating a partition and/or formatting one in the installer, if so I would suggest (though it will create 1 or 2 smaller BCD partitions) clean the disk reboot, and let windows installer handle the initialization partitioning formatting. That's how I've had the most success with the installer.
 
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thatdamheathen

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windows says it can't create a partition on this drive and when I try creating a partition it hasnt worked either. I have also tried cleaning the disk and letting windows install, but I get the same two errors popping up. Im notre sure if that's what you meant, but if it wasnt can you leave specific instructions to follow please?
 
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inzone

inzone

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The hard drive that you trying to load to was it in the computer along with the SSD before it died? If it was then it may already have a partition on it and that's why it's giving you the error, you may have to delete the partition that is on it and then make a new one.
Make sure that in the bios that the hard drive is listed first as the boot device and not the dvd or cd rom. When you removed the SSD your bios may have defaulted to the dvd as the first boot device. When the installer is running does it give you options of where to install?
 
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thatdamheathen

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The HDD was in the computer at the same time as the SSD. I have the the HDD listed as the first boot option, and on the install section only the drive is showing up with no visible partitions. The install only lets ne choose this drive and says it has 930/930GB free although it is a 1 TB drive. I have used a drivepart clean command to try and clear the drive and then install to no avail
 
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Jeremy Williams

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I notice now looking further into the specs of the mobo; you have 2 different SATA 6gbps controllers

"- 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by Intel® Z77, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, Intel® Rapid Storage and Intel® Smart Response Technology), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
- 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by ASMedia ASM1061, support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions (SATA3_A1 connector is shared with eSATA3 port)"

I would suggest setting to AHCI and ensure that you are connected to the Intel controller, as the ASMedia one may need additional driver support inside of Windows. From the looks of what they show in the specs on the website you would probably want to be in SATA3_1 instead of SATA3_A1 should that be the case.

As for the size showing, that would be the correct size based on the HDD manufacturers calculating 1MB=1000KB rather than 1MB=1024KB which is how the size actually is.
 
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thatdamheathen

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just double checked and I am plugged into sata3_1. I had my SSD plugged in into SATA3_0 if that makes a difference. Will plugging into SATA3_0 make any difference.Also thanks for taking the time to help me to all those who have posted or will post.
 
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