Windows 7 Installation Woes

Ok, so I am trying to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit on a 400GB Western Digital Caviar RE2 drive (Which was used as a linux boot drive before ( And I attempted to reset the BMR but if there is another step I need to conduct before I try to format a partition for 7 please let me know)), and I am just about to pull every hair follicle out of my skull. When I attempt the install it says that Windows cannot "format a partition on disk 0. ... Error code: 0x80070057". I am using a Gigabyte X58-UD3R with 6GB (3 2GB sticks) of OCZ DDR3 RAM, a Core i7 Bloomfield 3.06GHZ Quad-Core processor, and an EVGA GTX460 SE Graphics card. I don't fully understand the difference between AHCI, IDE and RAID modes for my motherboards SATA controller, but I have tried them all as well as every single SATA port on my motherboard.

This is my first computer build so please, if I said anything wrong/if you know what I am doing wrong due to me not knowing everything yet, please halp.

Thanks a bunch in advance.

Try deleting the partition in question. Or install the HD in anothber computer and format it from Disk Management. If all this fails, boot to a Windows XP CD and format the drive then install Windows 7.

Ok so i deleted all current partitions because they didn't have anything on them. Now i have 372.6GB of unallocated space. When I try to install to that it creates another partition of 100MB and reserves it as system. Then I get the same error code and When i try to go back to the point to look at the drives listed for installation, no partitions or unallocated space is shown for this particular drive.

Edit: and I can't boot into vista or XP because there is no version of windows on the drive, I am doing a clean install.

Which version retail, OEM or upgrade.

Its OEM, and I got the drivers straight from gigabytes website. I will try to boot into the setup disk and install them from there though.

Ok IDE is set in BIOS and I cant install the drivers from the driver disc that came with the motherboard, windows isnt picking it up.

Yes, I've tried 2 other sata cables, and no I dont have another hard drive I can try, until next week when I get my new 1TB back, because I had to RMA it because I deemed it was DOA.

Is the hard drive showing up in BIOS normally on the SATA controller?

Yeah, I would give it try. It works! 8)

Yark. Replied to the wrong thread! First mistake I have ever made. So, in BIOS you have the first boot device set as DVD/CD. You nhave to do this to boot to the Windows CD. Also, I would try one DIMM RAM only in slot one. The SATA hard drive is showing up in BIOS right.

Yeah. I meant to boot to the XP disk and go ahead and format the hard drive with the XP disk that way. That is what worked for me.