Oldie--Cannot install Win7 to IDE Hard Drive

wayout2day

wayout2day

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 15, 2006
Messages
170
I must be missing a step someplace here. Formatted a WD 800 IDE NTFS. Went to install Win7. Got an error..."Cannot be installed to this disk". See pics attached: of Error and Settings screens:
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Dell Optiplex GX240. Bios version A03.

Been a while since I used IDE, so I set the jumper to Cable Select. Checked in Settings, it shows the HD. I do not get a lot of choices in the Settings menu.

"Windows cannot be installed to this Disk. 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."

the HD works fine. i had on problems copying the files off of it, low-level format, regular format in NTFS. I can't imagine that I need to use FAT32.

Suggestions welcome....
 
Sounds like a jumper problem to me, but it could also be the IDE cable. I would try with another cable and with the HDD jumpers set to Master. Also, make sure that the disk is properly set to IDE mode in BIOS, and not some crazy RAID configuration (you'll find the settings under Storage Configuration or something like that).
 
When you click OK to get rid of that message, did you then Next anyway? Believe it or not I've seen that message come up hundreds if not thousands of times and I just click Next anyway and voila, it installs just as it should. I'm not saying that WILL work in your situation but I am asking if you have attempted to click Next and force it to continue once that notification is cleared from the screen by clicking OK on the popup. Just because it complains doesn't mean it won't actually do the installation.

Cables might be an issue to some degree, can't absolutely say a jumper would matter at all since the drive is recognized which it wouldn't be if it wasn't set properly. Since it's an old Dell machine if that's the factory drive and cable the cable will be a Cable Select cable (hard to tell apart from regular ones but it'll have a notch cut directly into the ribbon itself you can see clean through) and the drive will of course be jumpered for CS as well. You can adjust that if needed or you want to Master but again if the drive is being detected (it is, as noted in the pics above) then that isn't a potential issue, but the actual cable might.

If that doesn't work you may need to use a Linux LiveCD/DVD/USB and then use Gparted to remove all the partitions on the disk - easiest way is run Gparted, make sure you've selected the correct physical drive (or else you're gonna break something), click Device on the menu bar, then Create Partition Table, leave it at defaults (msdos) and then click OK to remove all partition data and redo it with the "factory default" layout, then attempt to install Windows 7 again.

On older drives and systems like that, another potential issue is a BIOS overlay (very old stuff but sometimes it happens) or even a potential boot sector virus in place that could have trashed the boot sector on the hard drive itself. If you can track down an old Windows 98/98SE bootable installation CD you can start that up, choose the MS-DOS option, then run fdisk /mbr which will restore the factory MBR code and have another go at it.
 
Haven't installed 7 in a while but don't you have to go through the step of setting up a partition before proceeding with the install. 7 had that 100mb hidden partition that had to be set up first before proceeding and I seem to remember always setting that up first and then formatting both that partition and the main partition where 7 is actually installed before proceeding with the rest of the install.
 
if you delete the partition in setup then click next it will format the drive to the way it needs to be and should work.
 
I am at the step of deleting the partition...see the photo...Win7 will not recognize the drive to install Windows....when i delete the partition, that does NOT change. I deleted the partition, then removed the hard drive, quick format ntfs, no change.

thanks for the comments....looking for more...i am missing something because this drive worked in the PC before i started this process...
 
Tried another Hard Drive....same problem...looking at the BIOS on the motherboard now...but i don't think i can update the BIOS to A05 (or later, haven't checked) without the operating system installed..... "enable the disk's controller in the bios".....no other setting i can find
 
The hard drive controller is already active, that much is obvious by the fact that the hard drive listed as connected in the setup menu as Primary Drive 0 - if it wasn't working in that respect the controller would just show nothing attached and that's obviously not the situation here.

As for a BIOS update, on such an older machine it would pretty much be guaranteed that it would have to be installed either from a floppy or a USB stick with the necessary files on but the age of that machine (2002-ish) means you more than likely won't find anything more current at Dell's website. It's entirely possible that an updated BIOS exists, and Dell does have a really good track record of keeping those files available for very long periods of time but, 15 years, that's pushing it. :)

There's one other potential issue but then again it might not be: the CMOS battery on the motherboard. Those things are designed to have a roughly 10 year lifespan and since that machine is far older than that there's a chance - a very small one but it exists - there could be an issue with the BIOS itself retaining settings properly. Yes the menus might list things properly but even so if you intend to make use of this machine you really should look at getting a newer "coin" style battery to replace the original one since it's way way past the typical lifespan at this point.

I can't think of much else to try, it's obvious the IDE controller is working because a) it wouldn't show the hard drive in the BIOS as Primary Drive 0 or b) it wouldn't show the optical drive as Secondary Drive 0 either and it's clear you've been able to boot from that. You could try swapping the cables of the hard drive and the optical drive - I mean literally disconnecting the cables from both the motherboard and the drives, swap them for the devices, then reattach and see what happens, it sure as hell can't hurt at this point.

It could be an issue with the power supply which is probably 15+ years old as well, it could be an awful lot of things happening to prevent this machine from working as expected.

Just to ask: have you tried to install or use a Linux LiveCD/DVD (as I'm not sure that machine can boot from a USB device) and whether or not that "live" OS can see the hard drive attached when Linux is running? And checking with Gparted as well? If it does appear as a visible hard drive once Linux is fully booted then I have to admit I'm a bit stumped as to what might be going wrong, but absolutely give that a shot, grab an ISO of Ubuntu or something and burn it to a DVD (the newer versions require more than the space available on a CD-R) and see what happens.
 
Switched to a Dell XPsp3 install disk. deleted the partition, created a partition--no problem.....now loading files....will update here
 
made it through the first stage of loading XP.....REBOOT.... "NTDETECT FAIL" flashed and the pc reboots to a flashing cursor and nothing else...i tried to load XP 2 times.... with the same results....so i got past the Hard Drive partitioning stage to meet a second problem....
 
wyqtor said:
Sounds like a jumper problem to me, but it could also be the IDE cable. I would try with another cable and with the HDD jumpers set to Master. Also, make sure that the disk is properly set to IDE mode in BIOS, and not some crazy RAID configuration (you'll find the settings under Storage Configuration or something like that).
Click to expand...

wayout2day said:
made it through the first stage of loading XP.....REBOOT.... "NTDETECT FAIL" flashed and the pc reboots to a flashing cursor and nothing else...i tried to load XP 2 times.... with the same results....so i got past the Hard Drive partitioning stage to meet a second problem....
Click to expand...

The crazy RAID mode would be my first guess. Also, the fact that XP starts the install and then fails on reboot (when it's trying to boot off the bootloader that the installer placed on the drive) makes me think even more that it could be something like that - with special hard disk controllers missing the boot would fail.
Try looking at the Dell site and seeing if beyond a BIOS update, there are downloads for hard drive controller drivers?
 
It's a 15+ year old computer, they didn't offer RAID on such a machine in those days in any configuration onboard and I seriously doubt there's a standalone PCI RAID card in that machine so that's a wash and isn't relevant (guess nobody seems to grasp that aspect but me, maybe).

An NTDETECT FAIL warning means it's not accessing the hard drive correctly and can't read the NTDETECT loader on the drive itself so, dead in the water.

I'll suggest this again: get a Linux LiveCD/DVD (make it from an ISO if you have to) and see what happens from there, even going so far as to attempt to install that Linux distro on the hard drive (not like you can't get rid of it later with another partition wipe/recreate action).

I checked the Service Tag, it was shipped in June 2002 so yeah, 15 years old basically. It has no RAID controller option - as noted, this system predates that kind of setup. the last BIOS update was A05 so that's covered and installed, and they only offer 3 downloads for it (I noted earlier in the thread it's so old they really don't keep that stuff around since Windows default drivers handle things past a certain point): the BIOS, an optical drive firmware update, and the ATI video driver.

So again, give a Linux distro a shot and see what happens, it can't hurt at this point but based on the progress so far I'm suspecting either a bad IDE cable or the IDE controller could be shot - of course, the hard drive(s) could have issues as well but since you tried at least 2 different ones the focus becomes the cabling or the controller.

But also as stated it could be a number of things. :D
 
TrailRunner said:
The crazy RAID mode would be my first guess. Also, the fact that XP starts the install and then fails on reboot (when it's trying to boot off the bootloader that the installer placed on the drive) makes me think even more that it could be something like that - with special hard disk controllers missing the boot would fail.
Try looking at the Dell site and seeing if beyond a BIOS update, there are downloads for hard drive controller drivers?
Click to expand...
I don't see any option for RAID....will check the site for HD drivers....perhaps i can load them off of a disk....good suggestion....
 
for shits and giggles, could you post pics of most of your bios pages, their shouldnt be alot.

I am just wondering if your system needs something set like specific irq or some weird shit like that in order to install xp or later.

Also I see you have the drive type set to auto, can you set it to manual and see if that helps ?

Apart from changing jumpers, using a different cable, changing hardrives and trying a different OS, all of which you have done except the cable, but the cable is picking up the drive so I doubt thats the cause but you never know, apart from all that I cant think of anything else, I would need to see your bios in order to be able to remember things from 20 years ago. So if you want post your bios pics and see if we can spot anything that should be enabled/disabled.

With a pc that old, crazy raid would need a floppy with drivers and that shouldnt affect the installation process of windows, as if I recall for crazy raid you had to push f6 during the install process to then install the raid drivers.
 
Tiberian said:
It's a 15+ year old computer, they didn't offer RAID on such a machine in those days in any configuration onboard and I seriously doubt there's a standalone PCI RAID card in that machine so that's a wash and isn't relevant (guess nobody seems to grasp that aspect but me, maybe).

An NTDETECT FAIL warning means it's not accessing the hard drive correctly and can't read the NTDETECT loader on the drive itself so, dead in the water.

I'll suggest this again: get a Linux LiveCD/DVD (make it from an ISO if you have to) and see what happens from there, even going so far as to attempt to install that Linux distro on the hard drive (not like you can't get rid of it later with another partition wipe/recreate action).

I checked the Service Tag, it was shipped in June 2002 so yeah, 15 years old basically. It has no RAID controller option - as noted, this system predates that kind of setup. the last BIOS update was A05 so that's covered and installed, and they only offer 3 downloads for it (I noted earlier in the thread it's so old they really don't keep that stuff around since Windows default drivers handle things past a certain point): the BIOS, an optical drive firmware update, and the ATI video driver.

So again, give a Linux distro a shot and see what happens, it can't hurt at this point but based on the progress so far I'm suspecting either a bad IDE cable or the IDE controller could be shot - of course, the hard drive(s) could have issues as well but since you tried at least 2 different ones the focus becomes the cabling or the controller.

But also as stated it could be a number of things. :D
Click to expand...
i will search out and try the linux Live....
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
for shits and giggles, could you post pics of most of your bios pages, their shouldnt be alot.

I am just wondering if your system needs something set like specific irq or some weird shit like that in order to install xp or later.

Also I see you have the drive type set to auto, can you set it to manual and see if that helps ?

Apart from changing jumpers, using a different cable, changing hardrives and trying a different OS, all of which you have done except the cable, but the cable is picking up the drive so I doubt thats the cause but you never know, apart from all that I cant think of anything else, I would need to see your bios in order to be able to remember things from 20 years ago. So if you want post your bios pics and see if we can spot anything that should be enabled/disabled.

With a pc that old, crazy raid would need a floppy with drivers and that shouldnt affect the installation process of windows, as if I recall for crazy raid you had to push f6 during the install process to then install the raid drivers.
Click to expand...
i posted the BIOS pics above....no more options
 
ok, found another cable....AND we are past the partitioning step....sorry to waste everyone's time....but thanks for the suggestions....at least i managed to make sure the system was turned on first !
 
That's good. Maybe try 7 now see if it works. Maybe the bad cable was causing it's probs too
 
I'm kind of surprised Windows 7 works on that. It's a Intel 845 chipset. I'm almost certain you won't be able to find a GPU driver for the onboard. You'll have to use a discrete card.

However, I have seen Intel provide drivers for really old hardware through Microsoft that are not available elsewhere, specifically Intel GPU drivers. When you are done installing, check device manager and see what drivers are missing. Update them and do the automatic online check to see if Microsoft has them in their repository.
 
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Pretty sure that machine came with the the discrete ATI Rage 128 based on the only driver Dell provides for it and looking at spec sheets of those days from 2002. Here's a page someone put up specifically for that Optiplex GX240 and their experience with installing/using Windows 7:

http://peter.vdhamer.com/installing-windows-7-on-a-dell-gx240/

There will be issues of course but it appears possible to get a properly supported install.
 
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