Vista 64 HDD Problem (help pls)

Hello,

When I am installing Vista 64...

"Where do you want to install Windows?" - Window heading

Both the HDDs come up on the screen and under 'name' heading its says....

"Disk 0 Unallocated Space"
and "Disk 1 Unallocated Space"

There is an option "format" but its greyed out

When I select either of the HDDs there is a warning message at bottom of screen saying:

"This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

Then when I ignore this warning and click "next" it says...

"Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation"

Neither of my HDDs will work?

Both brand new... there is something subtley wrong but I cant see it.



Please Help

Much appreciated

Thanks for reading

[Asus P5KC, 2 x 500GB Sata II HDDs]

Well, you first need to consider how do you want windows to set up. Do you want 2 hard drives. One for windows to live on (Drive C) and one for Storage (drive D) or do you want to combine them into one large drive?

The problem you're having with actually accessing them is you probably need to supply the motherboards drivers for the drive controller. I'm not sure... maybe someone else can drop in on this one. But I think you can pop in the motherboard cd and tell windows to load the drivers for your HDD controller.

Did you build this computer yourself? What plugs did you put the harddrives into? You do have to make sure the drives are indeed showing up in the bios. Although, if Winders can see them. That leads me to believe it just doesn't know how to talk to 'em.

Before you can format a drive it has to be partitioned. So you need to let windows create a partition in the unallocated space on one of the drives (probably drive 0 in this case).

Let me know

Also you need to check the bios and see how you have the drives set up. You need to see if you have them in a Raid 0 config, or if you just have 'em in there. If you want a Raid Drive then you need to go to the tutorials section of this website and read the guide to installing Vista with Raid.

Thanks billy bob! Your help is much appreciated.

This is my first build; I want 2 drives - one for media storage - the other for games and work; Hard drives use sata cables which plug into 2 of the 4 sata slots on the mobo; hdds are showing in bios; the support CD I got with vista which says "vista dirvers inside" on it does not load up

I just dont know to do. Ive uploaded a 'screen shot'.

Any ideas of what I should do/try etc.

Thanks again fella

Try this: Select Drive 0... Then>
/at the bottom of the screen you showed me Click New*

/ A size box will now appear under the New option

/ Type the size of the new partition into this box (or simply accept the default), then click the Apply button

/ The new partition will now be created.

Then you'll be able to select the drive and format it.

Your drivers are ok, and the bios is recognizing them fine. BTW

Its still having none of it

I put the CD in (which states all over it - vista drivers included) and Windows recognises it but says there are no compatible driers??

Thanks for your help and ideas m8

keep em coming

Thanks

p.s. am i doing something wrong here? Does this happen to everyone?

I'm not talkin' 'bout the cd anymore. Take the cd out of your drive and put the vista DVD back in . At the bottom of the hard drive page, click "New" to create a partition on one of those drives. Then you'll be able to format it and install vista there.

I did that - still wont let me go

Ok, I'm sorry. I'm gonna hafta let someone else take a look at this one. I don't have anymore advice except to start the installation over and try again. The only other thing I can think of is if you have access to another computer that is already running windows and has Sata ports. Stick your HDD's in there and partition and format them ahead of time.