Trying to install my first SSD, having major issues

J

JohnnyNapalm

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 13, 2007
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Bought a Crucial M4, popped out my c drive, replaced with the SSD, left my 1tb data backup drive in place.

I had SATA set to IDE, so I changed it to AHCI, and attempted to boot from the cd. The progress bar to just load the Windows 7 installer took FOREVER, and after a while I said screw it.

After rebooting, I noticed that my keyboard wasn't responding to input to get into the BIOS or boot order screens. After 6 or 7 reboots, finally got back to the BIOS. Changed SATA back to IDE, and tried to install again. This time, the installer fired right up, but my mouse (simple USB mouse) wasn't recognized/powered on. Installed Windows using just the keyboard, no big deal, and then it refused to take the CD key i've used since Win 7 came out!

Gave up for the night, popped the old HDD in, and it booted right up, keyboard and mouse both worked.

What the heck is going on here?
 
Also thought about needing to update my BIOS, so I downloaded the Gigabyte @BIOS utility and the freshest revision. Installer bombed on me. I think it's not to be!
 
Im pretty sure you will need to update the bios to install with AHCI if your motherboard is older. Use a USB thumb drive and flash it from the bios screen. Then change the SSD to AHCI. Then fresh install.
 
Motherboard isn't super old, Intel Z68 chipset, SATA3.

No clue how to flash a Gigabyte from the command prompt or from boot, I'll have to dig through the manual.
 
You download the latest Bios driver, unzip it onto a USB thumb drive, boot your computer into the bios, and use the bios updater to do it. You just click the file inside the bios and hit update. Not much else to it.

And you do realize, the progress bar just to load into the windows 7 installation has nothing to do with your SSD. If you are running a z68 which is what I am using, you probably should have just let the thing load for as long as it took, then installed.
 
Windows 7 installer does not particularly like AHCI mode on some motherboards and it has a hard time with CD drives specifically, this is why I switched to using a thumb drive for windows installs.
 
Yep I suggest the same thing, using a thumb drive for installing windows is great. Also, disconnect your backup drive (any drive except the target of the OS) when installing, this will avoid problems with windows randomly installing its boot files on the wrong drive.
 
Managed to get the OS installed and all seems to be working now. I guess it just had some demons that a night of rest got rid of!
 
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