Help Installing Vista Clean

[Guest]

When I try to install WVista home premium, I get the error message "a
required cd/dvd device driver is missing..." I have a brand new system that I
set up myself, new Plextor 755SA sata hard drive, WD Sata hard drive, Intel
975xBX2 mobo. All hardware is working. Tried putting in the dvd/HD install
disks but no drivers were found. MS says get updates to hardware. How the F
am I supposed to update hardware with no OS? This is a vicious circle and no
solution is in sight. How is anyone supposed to install vista? Need help
badly. Pulling hair out. Waited two weeks to get this system and DVD drive
finally arrived today so I could install vista. Now I may never be able to
install it. Any help would be tremendously appreciated. I can't even get free
product help for my retail version of Vista because I can't find the product
number unless I install it. God, Microsoft hasn't made it one bit easier to
install an OS from they day they formed a company. You'd think they'd have
made some steps by now.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

You need to open the BIOS and check your BIOS settings.
Is your DVD drive listed and do you have it set as the first
bootable drive?

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­-----


When I try to install WVista home premium, I get the error message "a
required cd/dvd device driver is missing..." I have a brand new system that I
set up myself, new Plextor 755SA sata hard drive, WD Sata hard drive, Intel
975xBX2 mobo. All hardware is working. Tried putting in the dvd/HD install
disks but no drivers were found. MS says get updates to hardware. How the F
am I supposed to update hardware with no OS? This is a vicious circle and no
solution is in sight. How is anyone supposed to install vista? Need help
badly. Pulling hair out. Waited two weeks to get this system and DVD drive
finally arrived today so I could install vista. Now I may never be able to
install it. Any help would be tremendously appreciated. I can't even get free
product help for my retail version of Vista because I can't find the product
number unless I install it. God, Microsoft hasn't made it one bit easier to
install an OS from they day they formed a company. You'd think they'd have
made some steps by now.

 

[Guest]

When the system boots, the drive appears in the drive list. Once inside the
boot menu, under Boot, it says "No optical drive." If I view the advanced
boot menu, the drive appears in the boot order list. I've made sure the drive
is first. However, when I put the Vista DVD in, I get to the Install Windows
screen, so there's no way the drive cannot be working. If the system doesn't
recognize the drive, why does it let me get to the Install menu, and if it's
working enough to get to the install menu, why does it keep asking for a
driver and why can't I install windows? And how am I supposed to update a
driver or firmware for anything if I have no operating system? And if I have
no operating system, how am I supposed to find my product ID number for free
support? Microsoft really dropped the ball with Vista. Every which way I
look, it seems I'm blocked from installing my copy of Windows.

When I get to the Vista install screen, the "Load driver" window comes up
with the following message when I try to install windows: "A required cd/dvd
drive device driver is missing If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, dvd, or
usb flash drive, please insert it now." I tried inserting the DVD drive CD
and the HD CD and no drivers were found. The only disk I haven't tried is the
mobo disk, but I don't see what difference that would make.

I'm tempted to just resell my Plextor 755SA drive and look for one that is
specifically Vista ready, but what a freaking hassle.

Any more suggestions? I could really use something that works. I appreciate
your help.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Phoenixjn

Go to the Plextor and look for the latest firmware/driver for that drive. If
you have a floppy drive, place the driver on that for the installation
program.

--

Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

 

[dean-dean]

Do you have drivers (SATA drive controller driver) that came with your hard
drives or motherboard? Try disconnecting the hard drive that Vista won't be
installed on (you can reconnect it after Vista is installed). If the
message "Required cd/dvd drive device driver is missing" comes up again,
interpret that as "Windows Install could not locate a storage device to
install Windows Vista on. Please provide the necessary drive or controller
device drivers provided by your manufacturer", and offer Setup the media for
your SATA drive controller driver.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestions. I hope I solved the problem by ordering two new
drives, Plextor 810SAs, which are the ones I wanted in the first place but
they weren't available until today. They are made to be Vista compatible.

I did try feeding it the HD and Plextor driver CDs with no luck. I did not
try disconnecting the HD, however. And I don't have a floppy (I was hoping to
get into the age where you don't need one; they are kind of annoying). I
suppose I could have tried that or still could if I have time before I
auction off the 755sa to regain my money for it. But I'm not very confident
that would work, and I'm not real excited about ripping out the floppy from
my old system, putting it in the new, and ripping it back out. If it turns
out my two new drives don't work, the perhaps the floppy will be an option
and I'll wish I would have kept the 755sa to fall back on. But I'm confident
they will work since they are designed for Vista, and everything else in my
sys appears to be working. And if it doesn't, well, I don't want to go there.

 

[dean-dean]

Maybe this article will help:

Installing RAID/SATA Drivers
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/installing_raid_sata_drivers.htm

 

[Guest]

Fixed! Windows was not the problem at all. Even the DVD drive wasn't the
problem, to the best of my knowledge. What happened was I thought I had
everything plugged in right, but didn't. I had all my sata devices plugged
into sata ports, but they were the RAID SATA ports, not the regular ones. As
soon as I switched everything to the regular SATA ports, boom, it all worked
like a charm, and I love Windows Vista. I take back everything I said about
MS. The thing is, I didn't realize there were ports that were strictly RAID
and strictly for regular SATA use.

Now, I heard you can also unlock the RAID ports for regular use, but I
haven't looked into that yet and don't know how.

 

[Brett I. Holcomb]

The setup for RAID should be in the BIOS for your motherboard or as an
option during boot to hit a key sequence and be taken to the RAID
configuration