Cant install Windows 7 on SSD

[Clinkers]

Hi All,

Had a hard drive fail about a month ago, only just managed to get bloody thing going again (and restore most of my pictures from old drive). My mate very kindly gave me an SSD 100gb from a RAID system he had been working on. The plan was to install Win 7 on the SSD, then use the ordinary 1Tb drive for games, files, etc.


It shows up fine in Win 7 (installed on an ordinary drive) but when I try to install Win 7 onto it, it gets as far as restarting then I get a disk error, press CTRL ALT DEL to restart.

Tried a few times now, using internal DVD, external DVD and from USB key, same every time. I have the ADHD (lol, whatever its called) selected in the BIOS, and the drive is recognised correctly in the BIOS as well.

Anyone any ideas what I'm doing wrong? It shows up now in Win 7 as 2 drives( partitiions?): 97GB free on drive F: and 100Mb reserved on drive E:

Cheers!

 

[Purity]

Can you tell us exactly what the disk error says?

 

[Exos]

It's AHCI, but a few SSD's need to be installed in compatibility mode (very few tbf)

"97GB free on drive F: and 100Mb reserved on drive E:"

This suggests to me you haven't installed anything on the drive? Can you be a little more specific over what you are doing? I'm assuming here when you say "it shows up in Win7", that this is either at the install screen or on another system.

As purity has mentioned can you tell us what the disk error is.

Also when you installed it, I'm assuming you also removed all the existing partitions at the initial Win7 install screen

 

[Clinkers]

Hi.

Sorry about the delay, only just got a chance to check it out.

My hard disk failed (MBR error) about a month ago, mate gave me a SSD 100Gb and a 1Tb Hitachi drive he had lying around. Plan was to install Win7 on the SSD, and use the 1Tb for games installs and stuff. I cant get Win7 to install on the SSD, so I installed it instead on the 1tb, and just connected up the SSD to see if it was working.

Win 7 is now installed on the 1tb, and the SSD drive shows up as 2 partitions (I think Windows makes the partitiion when it begins to install?)

The SSD comes in as 2 drives, Drive E is 100MB, drive F is 93GB. I can read and write files to it, and format it.
Disk D is the old drive I had that failed with the MBR error, I connected it back up and managed to get all my old images back from it.

When I try to reinstall Win7 by unhooking the other drives and just leaving the SSD, I can select my region to install, delete the partitions so I only have 1 93Gb drive showing, and begin installing (Windows is expanding files, etc), but when the PC reboots to finish install, i get the error

VERIFYING DMI POOL DATA...

A DISK READ ERROR OCCURRED
PRESS CTRL-ALT-DEL TO RESTART


When I look in the BIOS before it boots, it shows uo correctly there as a Samsung MCC0E1HG. I have it connected directly to one of the two main (Blue socket) SATA prts on my Gigabyte motherboard, the other drives are all connected to the 6 SATA ports in the middle of the board.

I know I'm lucky to have the PC going again, but it kills me to have an SSD bedside me that I would love to use (I've seen how fast they are on my mate's PC), but cant get the fecker to work properly!

Thanks again!

 

[little_pob]

Have you got the motherboard model number? A very small number of motherboards have SATA ports intended to only be used with specific types of drive (e.g. hard disk but not optical, and vice-versa).

In the mean time:

• Make sure the SSD is connected to the lowest numbered SATA port (usually SATA 0, but sometimes SATA 1).
• Check to see if there is a BIOS update that mentions improved SSD compatibility.
• Try the first answer on this Microsoft Answers page: Windows 7 install stuck on "Verifying DMI pool data" screen - Microsoft Answers
• See if there is a firmware update for the SSD.
• I'm assuming you are using a known good Win 7 disc, but try a different install disc anyway.

 

[Clinkers]

Right, had another go.

I've updated the BIOS (ver 8 now, from ver 4) its a Gigabyte EP45T-UD3R motherboard.

It goes all the way through the install until rebooting brings up the disk error again.

Hooked up 1TB drive, I can see that it has tried to install windows


Cant find a firmware update for the drive, and it's connected to GSATA 0 (purple sockets, there's socket 0 and socket 1, the other 6 sockets are orange)
Had a look at that thread from Microsoft, but it's more about hanging at the verify DMI pool, not coming up with disk error after verification.

I do know that the SSD was part of a RAID array once: do I need to reformat in some specific way in case there is some funny header thingy, maybe win7 is looking for a RAID array, not an SSD by itself? I dunno?

I only have the one version of Win7, and it is working (I'm typing this now!) so I cant try a different one.

Thanks all!

 

[Purity]

Is it possible that the SSD is faulty? Can you verify that it has no bad sectors, and is working as expected

If it's not displaying in the BIOS, to me, that equals faulty drive

 

[Clinkers]

HI,

Might be faulty, but I can read, write and format it when in Win7 and it's a second drive. Any good programs I can use to check (is it Sandra, I think I remember that name from somewhere?) and to do a good format?

It does show up in the BIOS, and it's working fine as a second drive in Win7 that's installed on the 1TB drive I have in now when I switch over to that drive to load up.. Just cant get Win7 to finish installing on it, to get it to work as the initial, booting drive (I have it selected as the boot drive in the BIOS, too)

Arrrgh! So close but so far!

 

[little_pob]

Just been the Gigabyte website product page for that motherboard. Have you tried loading the GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver from the screen at which you select the drive to install to: GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 775 - GA-EP45T-UD3R (rev. 1.0)

 

[Clinkers]

Good idea, its about the only thing I haven't tried yet. Not sure how I do it though; do I need to have it on the Dvd with the win7 installer? Or can I put it on a usb stick and select it from there? I won't get a chance til tomorrow so I'll give it a go then. Cheers!

 

[little_pob]

USB flash drive should work. On the screen where you select the drive/partition you want to install to, there should be a load driver option (I forget the actual wording).

If it downloads as an .exe, extract it using 7zip or winrar and put a copy of both the .exe and the extracted files on the flash drive (probably a step beyond what is needed, but just in case).

 

[Exos]

Try installing Crystal Disk. It should also give you an idea of it's current health status.

CrystalDiskInfo - Software - Crystal Dew World

I've not had to install drivers ever i think from the Win7 menu, but i think its CD/DVD or USB,

 

[Clinkers]

Well done Little Pob, exactly right! :Clap: Rep added!

Now all hooked up on the SSD, just had to load the driver from USB stick when installing.

Jesus, these things are quick: barely have time to click on "Remember this username /password" when I'm going through setting up my favourites again!

Thanks for all the help everybody, much appreciated!

 

[little_pob]

Well done Little Pob, exactly right! :Clap: Rep added!

Now all hooked up on the SSD, just had to load the driver from USB stick when installing.

Jesus, these things are quick: barely have time to click on "Remember this username /password" when I'm going through setting up my favourites again!

Thanks for all the help everybody, much appreciated!

To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to work... glad it did!

 

[Clinkers]

lol! Neither did I, but said what have I got to lose.... nice one m8!