Installing Win7: Unable to locate system partition

[ensis15]

I recently put together my first build and am currently trying to install Windows 7 onto it.

My school offers Windows OS for free so I downloaded a .iso file of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit onto a USB drive.

It starts up just fine, leads me to install Windows, agree to terms, but when I go to set up the drive it gives me the message, "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information."

I have no idea what is going on or what I can do about this.

I would really appreciate any ideas you could put forward to help me figure it out. Thanks.

 

[Hashwagon]

Are you able to go to advanced settings and delete any existing partitions and continue from there?

 

[hayden11]

Its look like that there is problem with your hard disk drive.

 

[ensis15]

I have tried going and creating/deleting partitions, but it doesn't help and I get the same problem.

How would I know what to do if there's something wrong with my hard drive? Any suggestions as to how I could fix any problem?

 

[JeremyRamsey]

make sure your HD has both the sata data and power cables seated properly.

 

[ensis15]

Well I know the hard drive is there, It tells me that there is a disk with 0 unallocated space and such. And I am pretty sure that all my cables are in and correct.

Here is the hard drive I have, if it helps:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

 

[scout_03]

first this is a sata drive and need to be connect to the first sata port on the board after did the install aks you to format the drive to be prepare for the os and check that is not a upgrage of win 7 also even it the os was given by the school you will need a serial number to have it work.

 

[dingo07]

be sure there is only 1 drive connected and powered in your system

 

[JeremyRamsey]

Someone said this in another forum post, I can't remember who, but go into the bios and make sure it's set to IDE and not AHCI for the hard drive.

A drive with 0 unallocated space sounds like it might only be seeing the USB drive you are installing from.

 

[MC_K7]

Try to burn that .iso file on a DVD instead, maybe the problem comes from the USB key.

 

[ensis15]

Alright, I went to set it to IDE from AHCI and it's still the same. Nothing changed for me. Any other suggestions?

 

[SCUZNUTS]

Make sure the HDD is the first boot device,
Mash the boot key to select the USB at start up,

Try install W7 again,

If still failing press shift+F10 - Should bring up CMD
Use diskpart to format your HDD manually and try install W7 again.

Still failing, use Ubuntu live disk to format HDD and try install W7 again.

 

[JeremyRamsey]

Does the HD show up in the bios or the POST?

 

[ensis15]

Do you think I can get some instruction as to how to use diskpart to format my HDD? I'm not too sure how

And yes the HD does show up in my BIOS

 

[ensis15]

Is there anybody out there that has any more suggestions for me? Or any idea of what might be wrong?

 

[cball1311]

What make and model motherboard do you have? Could be a driver issue with the disk controller.

 

[ensis15]

I've got an ASROCK H77M

 

[scout_03]

could you do a full format of that drive on another system and after do a cmos reset on the one you want to install this drive and try to load windows to it and leave the ahci in the bios for it if you want to use intel rapid storage.

 

[cball1311]

Ok. Make sure that the HDD is connected to the SATA3_0 port (Grey). Then, on the PC your using to post here, download the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver (support for ACHI) from here. (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H77M/?cat=Download&os=Win764), unzip it on the USB stick in a seperate directory (i.e RST). Boot the PC and go into the BIOS and put the SATA controller back on ACHI and reboot to Windows setup. When it asks for the drive that you would like, in the bottom left, click Load Driver. Find the RST driver in the RST directory and install it. Once completed, see if you can select the drive then.

 

[ensis15]

I ended up finally finding a DVD-R to load the OS onto and downloaded the drivers for my motherboard and it finally got itself up and running.

Thanks for all of your help, guys.