SSD drive not recognised during Windows 7 Install

[AcidT]

Hi There

Hopefully someone will be able to help me with this problem. I have the following hardware, an ASUS
M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard and a Kingston HyperX SH100S3 120GB SSD.

With my current installation of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit I can see the SSD in Windows explorer and computer management. The drive is usable and i can copy to and from it but when i try to install Windows 7 on it the drive is not recognised as a usable drive to install Windows on.

I have changed the SATA 6G ports to AHCI and updated my chipset drivers as well the SSD'd firmware and also made a startup disk with the latest AHCI driver from ASUS to use during installation but still the SSD is not being recognised during installation.

The SSD was the only connected hard drive and on SATA port 1 when all of the above was done.

I am now at my witsend to get this hard drive to work as a system drive running Windows 7. I cannot find any drivers on Kingston's or ASUS's websites to use during installation to get this SSD recognised.

Any idea what I can now try to do?

Regards

 

[Pada]

Update your motherboard's BIOS first.

If the Windows installation does not pick up the SSD then, then try setting it to IDE when you install Windows and then change it back and enable TRIM.
It may also be a stupid configuration problem in the motherboard's RAID controller configuration, which is the screen just after the BIOS POST screen.

There are quite a few people on the Internet that have your problem: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=673734

 

[AcidT]

Hi

I have updated the BIOS as well and it does the same thing under IDE and AHCI.

Stupid question but what is the TRIM you are referring to. First time I hear of it...

 

[AcidT]

Stupid question but what is the TRIM you are referring to. First time I hear of it...

Never mind I found out what this refers to. I'll give it a go and also change the settings to RAID and then see under both of the settings what the outcome is.

Will post back on the results...

 

[AcidT]

Ok so with all of the given info and even changing the configuration to raid the installation of Windows 7 on the ssd cannot be done. The drive is simplyvnot recognised when the installation is started...

 

[itareanlnotani]

Its probably that it doesn't like the partition you're using on the SSD. I'd clear the drive completely of all partitions and guid tables, and try again. See method 8 in this page - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927520

If it still doesn't see it, then you'll need to tell windows to use specific drivers.
Your board details are here - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A89GTD_PROUSB3/#specifications

And that says you have a JMicron® JMB361 PATA and SATA controller.
Not my favourite chipset to be honest.

I'd make sure BIOS is set to AHCI, and you've plugged the SSD into the standard SATA connectors.
(i.e. not the RAID ones).

What BIOS version are you running?
Latest is either BIOS 3029 or BIOS 3030

Make sure you're on v29 I guess..

Also, do you have a newer version of a windows install? SP1 perhaps?

 

[AcidT]

Thanks for all the feedback and asisstance. Got it to work eventually.

Bios was update to latest version - 3029

Then i performed step 8 on the provided url - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927520

After all this was done I checked the configuration of the disk in disk management (Computer amangement) and was asked to restore the MBR which I did.

AHCI was activated in the BIOS on reboot and that did the trick....

 

[itareanlnotani]

Nice!