Thanks R.C., I've been thinking that Western Digital supplied Vista
drivers
were the answer all along. But according to WD they don't have Vista
drivers
and all I need to do is format the drive and Vista will use it. Other
discussions in this community lead me to think that it is a Gigabyte
supplied
SATA driver that I need. I've downloaded from their site and installed
a
number of drivers which may or may not have helped, but I think the
farthest
I've gotten is changing the BIOS setting to enable SATA Port0-3 Native
Mode.
Then at least I could "see" the drive in the Vista install.
So if I understand you right with the system partition, using the Vista
install, I need to create/format a primary partition (30-80GB depending
on
which discussion I look at). I don't recall seeing where I would make
it
active, but go back into BIOS and designate that partition as the boot
device, and then start the Vista install again to have Vista recognize
it
as
a drive it can boot from (hopefully). I'll leave the remaining 400-ish
GB
as
a single data drive. At least that's tonight's plan unless you (or
someone
else) tells me I'm missing the boat.
Thanks,
BD
:
Hi, BikerDale.
It sounds like you are hitting the common problem of trying to install
Vista
onto a hard drive without the proper drivers. Many programs -
including
Vista Setup - can USE a hard drive, but cannot BOOT FROM that hard
drive
without installing drivers.
When we boot from the Vista DVD and run Setup, we don't need the
drivers
for
the hard drive for the first phase of Setup. The needed files to boot
from
the DVD are on the DVD. Setup knows how to partition and format the
hard
drive (even SATA) and copy files to it. But after that, it comes time
to
actually boot from the hard drive, rather than from the DVD - and
that's
when the process chokes.
The Vista DVD has drivers for many hard drives, including some SATA
drives,
but not all. You probably need to check the Western Digital website
for
Vista drivers for your specific model, download them, and put them
onto a
floppy diskette. Have that diskette handy when you boot from the
Vista
DVD
to run Setup. ("Windows Vista Inside Out says that the drivers can be
on
a
thumb drive or CD, but I haven't had occasion to test that. I did
this
many
times in Win2K and WinXP; they insisted on a diskette.) Setup will
ask
for
the driver diskette when you get to the screen that asks where you
want
to
install Vista.
When I create/format a new partition, it displays as Primary. How
do I designate a system volume to complete the Vista install?
You might want to read this KB article to clarify the counterintuitive
naming of the System and Boot volumes:
Definitions for system volume and boot volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/
Those names are backwards from most users' expectations. As often
said,
we
boot from the system partition and keep the operating system in the
boot
volume. The boot-up process always starts in the System Partition,
then
branches from there to the Boot Volume for whichever operating system
we
choose for the current session. The System Partition must be a
Primary
Partition, marked Active, on the hard drive designated in the BIOS as
the
boot device, but any volume (primary partition or logical drive) on
any
hard
drive can serve as a Boot Volume.
Typically, there is only a single partition covering the entire hard
disk,
so it becomes Drive C:, the System Partition, the Boot Volume, the
swap
drive - and everything else. But you might want to divide your 500 GB
into
multiple partitions. There are many opinions as to which is the best
way
to
organize a hard drive. My preference is to have a small System
Partition
to
hold only the startup files; these files total only a few MB, so this
partition can be under 1 GB, but I probably would make it about 10-20
GB
because some ill-behaved installation programs insist on using the
system
volume for their temporary files. Vista's boot volume will need to be
at
least 15 GB for the initial installation, but Vista GROWS! With your
500
GB
drive, you probably should make the Vista volume at least 30 GB. The
rest
of your 500 GB can be a single "data' volume, or divided into multiple
drives to suit yourself.
Vista's Disk Management can handle any further partition creation
chores
after Vista is up and running. Note a change from prior versions of
DM:
The first 3 volumes will be created as primary partitions. When it
creates
a 4th volume, DM creates an extended partition and then creates the
4th
volume as a logical drive within it. If we want a different
arrangement,
we
have to use the DiskPart.exe shell.
RC
I'm doing (trying) a clean install Vista Home Premium on a new
system
build.
Reading prior posts and good advice I was finally able to see my
SATA
drive
at the "Select a drive to install Vista" screen by changing BIOS
setting
"SATA Port0-3 Native Mode [Enabled]". Now I can create new
partiions
and
format. I've tried a number of configurations, but they all fail
with
the
error "Windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid
system
volume". When I create/format a new partition, it displays as
Primary.
How
do I designate a system volume to complete the Vista install?
System Info:
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mother board
Western Digital WD5000AAKS SATA 500GB (single - no raid)
