Windows 7 install won't show the entire hard drive capacity

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gold3Layer

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Jun 3, 2014
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I'm trying to install Windows 7 from a bootable USB on a new hard drive in an HP Pavillion dm4-3170se Beats Edition. When I choose custom install, the installation asks where I want to install it, the window shows one disk 0 partition of about 100MB and another around 30GB. The hard drive I have in the computer is 500GB and has been formatted to NTFS. When I choose next on the 30GB partition, it looks like windows is being installed normally and goes to restart to finish the install.

After the restart it just boots from the USB again and goes through the whole install process again with less space on the 30GB partition. I've tried taking out the USB after the restart but a message comes up saying I need an OS installed on the hard drive.

I've seen where some suggestions were to change a SATA setting in the BIOS. The only settings I saw was and date/time and boot order change. (Notebook Hard Drive is at the top on the computer)

Does anyone know how to fix this?
Could it be a missing driver problem? If so, how can I install a driver without an OS?
Why doesn't the entire hard drive show up when I go to install Windows 7?
 
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nubbsauce
I've had this problem with an ASUS ROG laptop. The drive is protected somehow and you have to delete everything on the drive, reformat (Full not quick) and then reboot. Boot from the USB again, create a new partition, and boom. When the computer restarts it should just continue where it left off and proceed to the windows login. Also, are you trying to install a "Downloaded" version of windows 7 or is it an actual ISO copy of a retail disk?

*edit* I would also not recommend splitting the HDD into multiple partitions. You can if you want, I just personally hate it.
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supasieu

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Does Bios recognize the notebook hard drive as 500GB or 30GB? Some of the newer model has two hard drive (one SSD with smaller capacity for OS, one large capacity hard drive for storage). Make sure that Bios detect all your hard drives, move the 30GB hdd on first priority boot option.
The laptop could be preset with disk raid mode, look for a "Reset Disks to non-raid" and/or SATA configuration options in Configuration Utility (Press Ctrol +1) and reset it (from this post)
 
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gold3Layer

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The computer must only recognize the 30GB, but in the system information it only shows memory size which is 6GB. There's not a lot of options in the BIOS to change. I read that other post and I had that same page come up once before. But after I reset the disks to non-raid it doesn't show up anymore.
** Before I reset the disks to non-raid nothing would show up in the option where I wanted to install Windows 7. When I did reset it the 30GB partition showed up**
I'm not sure how to make the computer detect both hard drives and move the 30GB to priority boot.

Also, I ran the disk and memory test. The primary disk comes back with "Disk doesn't exist". The secondary disk and memory test passed.
 
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supasieu

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Are you able to take screenshot of the BIOS screen and post it?

Edited:: It seems HP DM4 series has Bios locked. If so, you might need to mod the bios to unlock the advanced option where you can change SATA configuration to AHCI for Windows to recognize all the drives. I'm not sure, or someone might have better options from source
 
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nubbsauce

nubbsauce

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I've had this problem with an ASUS ROG laptop. The drive is protected somehow and you have to delete everything on the drive, reformat (Full not quick) and then reboot. Boot from the USB again, create a new partition, and boom. When the computer restarts it should just continue where it left off and proceed to the windows login. Also, are you trying to install a "Downloaded" version of windows 7 or is it an actual ISO copy of a retail disk?

*edit* I would also not recommend splitting the HDD into multiple partitions. You can if you want, I just personally hate it.
 
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