Not too sure where to post this...but:

So I've just purchased brand new eeeverything as I wanted to build my own PC. I am trying to install windows vista home prem 64bit and I'm having problems. The vista installer doesn't recognize my SATA drive. I've heard that I don't need to install drivers for the HDD because it isn't in a RAID array. Note that the drive isn't formatted or partitioned, could this be the issue? When I try to format the drive with the vista installer it gives an error and cannot do so. Also, the HDD is physically installed correctly as BIOS makes full note of its presence.
My equipment is as follows:

- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA HDD
- gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L mobo

I know lots of people are having issues with this and I can't seem to find a fix. Thanks in advance for any help!

Dan

i had this same problem with same hard drive but a difernt gigabyte mobo. after hour or 2 on the phone troubleshooting with seagate i just ended up rmaing the hdd. i had 2 hard drives installed the other was the older 7200.10 drive which worked so im hoping it was just the drive. i havnt gotten it back yet so i cant tell u either way but u may have to install drivers depending what sata controller ur using. the intel one should be supported by vista if ur using the gigabyte controller ull need to install the drivers for it.

Did you press F10 to set the RAID up and turn the SATA controllers on in BIOS? Yes Vista install the basic RAID driver while installing windows then you should find your chipset drivers and that will install Updated drivers. I had the same problem and all i did install vista on one drive then when i reinstalled it, it let me see both disk as one HDD

If the drive is installed properly physically then the problem might be the drive. Try this take the drive to another machine and do a full format on it(go for a drive to the country or something cuz its going to take a while). If the drive still wont work then send it back to the store or RMA it with seagate. I've been having the same issue with Seagate/Maxtor drives for the past few weeks now, brand new drives that either can't install windows,initialize or format.Just last week i had to RMA 3 drives one after the other,it might be my supplier laxing off on thier quality control or Seagate is dishing out bad drives which is unlike them.

Another thing to check is to make sure the SATA drive is in the first priority spot in the BIOS. The default in the BIOS is usually to "A" drive, a floppy, so the computer looks first for an "A" drive and finding none, an error appears on the Vista installer. So the first thing I would do is check the BIOS and make sure that the SATA drive is listed as the first in the "Boot Device Priority".

After the OS is installed, you change this so that the hard drive is listed as the first priority drive. Otherwise, when you start the computer, it will first look to the SATA drive and finding nothing, will produce an error.

Fix: format and partition drive with XP installer (since vista installer seems to have a problem doing this for anyone) then exit that installer and begin the vista installation. Takes a fair bit of time but should work. Thanks all.

If you don't have an XP disc then you could give GParted a try.