Can't install windows - any version!

[uss enterprise]

Hi all,

I had posted a thread a couple of weeks ago stating I was getting a strange error while trying to install Win 7 official beta.

It said "Windows cannot install to this drive" and affected every drive I threw at it. RAID, non-RAID, Sata, IDE, everything

So I gave up.

Well, I just bought a couple new harddrives, and figured i'd reinstall Vista while i'm at it.
Now I can't install Vista either.
Exact same error. "windows cannot install to this drive".

Exact same symptoms, no drive I throw at it will install.

So, for s&g, I figured i'd try to install xp. Won't install.

Obviously, my Vista install on my old drive works fine, or I wouldn't be able to post this. I have 2 installs, one on RAID, and one non-raid. Both work fine. And, believe it or not, I can even install windows on an open partition on THOSE DRIVES ONLY. XP, vista, and 7 all install fine.

I've tried to install all 3windows OS's (but Vista is what I ultimately want installed) on:

2 different maxtor 80 gig sata drives

1 wd 250 gig sata drive

2 different wd 250 gig ide drives

2 seagate 40 gig ide drives

1 maxtor 160 gig sata drive

and of course my new drives, 2 WD Black 1TB drives

All fail.

Makes no sense.

What the hell is going on?

And why can I still install to an open partition on my original drives? But nothing else?

I don't get it.

[Cov]

Hmm, just my 2 cent though.

Actually, my last install was about 2 weeks ago ... Windows 7 on a 100GB HDD.
That was a difficult birth I have to say. Needed to try several times. And after every reboot, the installation process frooze at a different point ... until it finally worked all the way through.
As I said, a very difficult birth that was.

On the 1TB main HDD is a Vista installation which is about 1 year old now.
While I had the difficulties with the Windows 7 installation, I tried my old Vista DVD as well, and that was even worse. Everything looked like the DVD is faulty because of one read error after another.

The DVD (although being a security copy) looks shiny like freshly pressed.

Two things came to my mind:

1. The DVD being a DVD-R might have reached the end of its life ?
We know that recordable DVDs have a deadline ... I would have thought rather 5 to 10 years, but who knows ?

2. The ODD (Optical Disk Drive) might not work anymore as it suppose to.
Yeah, have tried my old PATA ODD, and the same strange error occured.

Well, to make a long story short, I don't know why life's a bitch sometimes ... or should there be a logical explanation ??

Hopefully someone has another idea ...

[Enigma]

install linux??? lol mayabe it is a sign from linus torvald

[Cov]

Funny that you mention that.
During my ordeal through all night, trying everything to make the installation work, I tried to install Ubuntu (just to see) ... and it worked like a charm !?!?!
Shame on me, but I really could not get used to it ... so I then continued trying to install Windows 7 ... uuuh, that felt so good (once the installation worked though).

[MChief]

Funny that you mention that.
During my ordeal through all night, trying everything to make the installation work, I tried to install Ubuntu (just to see) ... and it worked like a charm !?!?!
Shame on me, but I really could not get used to it ... so I then continued trying to install Windows 7 ... uuuh, that felt so good (once the installation worked though).

Any chance all the drives have a GPT partition table? Ubuntu will install with no problem, but Windows is stubborn on GPT.

[uss enterprise]

Fixed the problem.

Somehow, the MBR on all of my drives was messed up, except the ones I was using.
Fixed issue for all drives, every single one operates normally.

Strange.

[Cov]

Hmmm, MBR = Master Boot Record ... and that was messed up on all drives ?

PCs never cease to amaze me.

[tennisballs]

Reformat and retry.

[uss enterprise]

Yep.
Low level formatted, booted every drive into vista, rewrote MBR and formatted, no problems anymore.

Strange.