Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Windows cannot be installed on this drive? +stuff

Last response: in Storage
Share

Well basically I have a 1TB drive currently used for boot/storage(obviously xD)

But soon I will be upgrading from 775 to 1155 so I'll need to re-install windows(right?)

my 1tb is about half full (about 550GBs used) with data very valuable to me so I want to install windows onto a separate drive so that I can keep all my files when I upgrade my motherboard.

However last time I tried to do this with my 200GB WD2000JS(or something like that) windows said during the setup where you choose the disk, windows cannot be installed onto this drive, or something like that...


So yeah, any help? I really need to install windows onto this drive to keep my files, also if I can get this done, will already having windows on my 1TB drive cause clashes or problems?



Oh and the operating system I'm using is Windows 7 ultimate 64bit

More about : windows installed drive stuff

Register or log in to remove
Storage Expert

Yes, do a clean Windows 7 re-install, it is much more reliable than trying a repair install with a new rig. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Not a problem to save the old drive, just do not connect the drive that currently has the Windows 7 installation on it and the important files until after the new installation is done.

And if the data files really are important, back them up yesterday to a reliable media, DVDs or cloud.
Related ressources
Ask the community

No, I will have the new system in a few weeks so I don't want to install it all rendering my PC useless with this problem because then I won't be able to access a computer to get help with it

New disk? I just use my windows disk I put onto my USB, it works but for some reasons when I try to install it onto my 200GB WD, it just says windows cannot install onto this disk, but it lets me install it onto my 80GB IDE and my 1TB samsung f3

Did you disconnect all other disks before attempting to install on your 200gb disk? That's the recommended method and if you do that and it still says it cannot install it on that disk maybe you should re-partition it first. There are several bootable usb methods to do that. I use my Ubuntu usb.

it's just an empty drive, I whiped it by pressing "Format drive" in the installation menu and it still said it can't be installed, even with every other drive removed

I heard something about making sure the drive is in UEFO mode or something like that? Any ideas?
Storage Expert

iixwh3l4nxii said:
it's just an empty drive, I whiped it by pressing "Format drive" in the installation menu and it still said it can't be installed, even with every other drive removed

I heard something about making sure the drive is in UEFO mode or something like that? Any ideas?
I don't know what file system was on the drive before, but just delete all partitions and make it an unallocated empty drive, Windows install disk will do the format to NTFS. You should not have to make any specific selection to format the drive.

I would think that you are referring to UEFI, and by that if the drive is larger than 2.2Tb it will need to be GPT partitioned instead of using MBR -- if your hardware is compliant Windows 7 x64 will automatically do that, if your hardware is not compliant then you would have a problem. As you said the drive was an old 200Gb drive that should not be an issue.

It sounds more like an issue that you have the drive on a controller that cannot support a boot drive. You need to insure that the 200Gb drive is the only HDD attached and is on a motherboard controller that supports a boot drive.
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Storage categories
!