Hard Disk Drive not recognized during Windows XP or Windows 7 Setup

[cap223]

I recently purchased a WD Scorpio Black 320GB 2.5" HDD for my Gateway MX6920 notebook. I wanted to upgrade to this larger, faster HDD and replaced it into my notebook and attempted to install Windows 7. During setup it stopped and gave the error 0xc00000e9 for "unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive ......".

I tried installing Windows XP and it gets to a blue screen to choose a Repair of Windows or a fresh install. Choosing either one returns a blue screen that says system can not find a Hard disk connected.
I put this drive into an enclosure and formatted it in another computer. Also it is recognized in BIOS. I'm running BIOS version 77.08 if relevant.

 

[ekoostik]

It sounds like you are trying to do a clean install on a brand new HDD. In other words, you are not doing an upgrade. In that case, put the HDD in your laptop and the OS disc in the optical drive. Boot your laptop so it boots from the DVD and starts the install program. When prompted, choose to do a Custom install - Not an upgrade. The next screen after choosing Custom should ask you where you want to install windows and your harddrive should be listed. Click on your harddrive to select it (it may be selected by default) and then click on "Drive options (advanced)". If more than one partition is listed, click on the partitions and choose Delete until all partitions are gone and you have only one row shown in the list. Now click on that row and choose Format. Now you may click next and continue with the install process.

There are step by steps on the web. Here's one I found: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

If at some point in this process you have problems with the HDD or install program let us know where you were in the process and what happened.

 

[cap223]

Ekoostik.. Once I click Custom install, it states that NO HARD DISK IS FOUND. That's my problem. The HDD is recognized in BIOS and is recognized on other computers running Windows VISTA and XP. But during setup of XP or W7, the HDD is not being recognized.