Vista install can't see SATA hard drive

[Jay]

I am trying to do a clean install on a newly built system but Vista can not
see my SATA hard drive. I have a Seagate 7200 barracuda 320 GB SATA HD and a
Giga-byte P35 Mobo. Not knowing if it was a Vista issue or a hardware issue,
I put in a XP installation disk and XP could recognize the drive. I stopped
the install and tried loading some drivers off of the disk from Gigabyte.
Vista still can not see the hard drive, but now when I throw the XP install
disk back in, it can not see the hard drive either. Anyone know how to fix
this?

 

[Bob F.]

I am trying to do a clean install on a newly built system but Vista can not
see my SATA hard drive. I have a Seagate 7200 barracuda 320 GB SATA HD
and a
Giga-byte P35 Mobo. Not knowing if it was a Vista issue or a hardware
issue,
I put in a XP installation disk and XP could recognize the drive. I
stopped
the install and tried loading some drivers off of the disk from Gigabyte.
Vista still can not see the hard drive, but now when I throw the XP
install
disk back in, it can not see the hard drive either. Anyone know how to
fix
this?

What do you see with Seagate Disk Tools? That should be able to format the
drive and prepare it for an OS installation.

 

[Jay]

I hadn't run anything on this hard drive yet. It was an OEM version so i
took it out of the bubble pack and installed it into my computer. So maybe I
take it out, attach to my other computer and try to format it.

 

[Bob F.]

I hadn't run anything on this hard drive yet. It was an OEM version so i
took it out of the bubble pack and installed it into my computer. So
maybe I
take it out, attach to my other computer and try to format it.

No need. You should have gotten a copy of Disktools from Seagate. If not
you can download it free. It runs standalone. It should find your drive
and it format it where it is. Very simple and fundamental. Disktools
doesn't care if it's OEM or where it is.

 

[John Barnes]

You should have the SATA controller driver (usually from the MOBO disk) and
install on the page where you select the drive. There is a button to
install the driver.

 

[Jay]

I forgot to mention below that the BIOS sees the drive.

Anyways, I go through the Vista installation, and then select install
driver. I install the driver and it still doesn't see the drive.

 

[John Barnes]

On your MOBO driver cd, there is usually a program called something like
'make driver disk'. You need to run that and put the drivers on a USB drive
or floppy. That would be what you would browse to when you are asked to
install the drivers. You do not just put a cd in the drive and expect that
it will give you the drivers.

 

[JoeP]

Hi Bob,

Which disk tools are you using? The Enterprise one which is called:
SeaTools_Enterprise_Install.exe or SeaToolsDOS207EURO.iso that works with
cd.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Bob F.]

I used various versions over the years. The Disk I just received with the
500GB drive I just added was called " Disk Utility CD" and has: Seatools
Online, Disk Wizard and a Users Manual included. You can download the same
software from the site which I've also done in the past.