Unbelievable OS installation issues

A

ashman

Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2011
Messages
811
So my son wanted to build a new pc, no problem, picked out his parts, wanted to go AMD so we chose a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P board, looked decent. Built the PC no problem, got to installing windows 7 and whoah, it did not want to install at all. I kept running into a message that basically said it needed a driver for the on board SATA controller as it could not see a hard drive to install the OS to, how hard could that be. We weren't installing an internal optical drive so I was using an external USB CD\DVD ROM drive, downloaded the drivers from Gigabyte's website, nope, used the disc that came with the board, nope. I tried to different Windows 7 Pro 64 bit discs, nope. Finally after two hours of this, I tried a Windows 8 pro 64 bit disc and BAMN it installed, why? I have no freaking clue, but whatever, we got Windows installed, upgraded to 8.1 kid is relatively happy even though he hates 8.1 he is getting used to it. Has anyone else run into this? I know am I not a dumb ass and was doing the right thing, just really weird it wouldn't take Windows 7.
 
Most likely cause Win 7 doesn't have built in AHCI drivers for the HDD for that board and it doesn't detect the drives at install.

Win 8.1 does.

That is your answer :)
 
Windows 7 has a generic AHCI driver that should have worked. If it was set as "RAID" instead of AHCI, that might have caused it.
 
It was set to AHCI, and I was following the instructions in the manual, it just wouldn't take the drivers, I don't know why. If it says it supports Windows 7 then it should of taken the drivers, very odd.
 
If you connected to the non-AMD sata port, say a Marvell or JMICRON controller port, that would explain why there was no driver on the disc. Since 8.1 is 4 years newer, the drivers have since been integrated.

Look at the motherboard spec sheets and identify what ports are native SATA and which ones are Marvell or JMICRON and see what one you plugged the disk into.

It is also possible that if it's a newer AMD chipset that Windows 7 doesn't have the driver. You need to download the storage controller drivers from the website. Look for the Sata/RAID AHCI "F6" driver section.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4642#dl
 
bigdogchris said:
If you connected to the non-AMD sata port, say a Marvell or JMICRON controller port, that would explain why there was no driver on the disc. Since 8.1 is 4 years newer, the drivers have since been integrated.

Look at the motherboard spec sheets and identify what ports are native SATA and which ones are Marvell or JMICRON and see what one you plugged the disk into.

It is also possible that if it's a newer AMD chipset that Windows 7 doesn't have the driver. You need to download the storage controller drivers from the website. Look for the Sata/RAID AHCI "F6" driver section.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4642#dl
Click to expand...

^^^^^
 
The board only has 6 SATA ports, none are Marvell or JMICRON, what I wasn't doing was pressing F6 during the Windows 7 install, since the instructions on page 57 of the manual say to get to the point during install when it asks for the drivers, which is what I was doing and it wouldn't take them. I had the drive connected to SATA port 0. I guess its just that the board has a newer chipset and Windows 7 doesn't have up to date drivers, but it still should of worked with the drivers from the website.
 
everytime a new kit enters the house i rebuild a custom W7 image with sevenlite and integrate the drivers on the OS install image. you could simply download everything from the site, integrate into windows 7 image and be done with it.
 
I'm running into a similar issue with an intel/asus W7 install. Just so you don't think it's gigabyte or amd at fault.

I've built a dozen machines and have only =today= run into the drivers issue during install.

FWIW.

Ken
 
ashman said:
It was set to AHCI, and I was following the instructions in the manual, it just wouldn't take the drivers, I don't know why. If it says it supports Windows 7 then it should of taken the drivers, very odd.
Click to expand...

Hello, may I know if you attached your DVD ROM on SATA port 4 and 5?or 0/1 or 2/3?
I recommend you attached your DVD drive on SATA port 4 and 5 and under bios you set SATA mode for SATA port 4 and 5 as IDE mode.
As far as I know, under AMD, your DVD must be at IDE mode to detect DVD drive.
If you attached your DVD on SATA port 0,1,2, and 3 and set under bios as AHCI, you might not get to detect DVD drive.
 
Use the AMD x86 SATA AHCI drivers and have them on a USB.
The x64 ones don't work...still..in 2014..since 2009-10
also..plug dvd into port 5-6
 
Last edited:
Could always use DISM to add some drivers into the install image. Though if you only use it for one machine that's a lot of effort. I did that with some of the drivers for the machines we use at work, though, and it works pretty well.
 
My install fail due to drivers (H87/i5) was a bad W7 disk.

If you can get a different install disk or download the install iso, that may help.

Good luck.
 
I had a similar problem on a few machines. So finally I used Iso to Usb and put the win 7 disc image on a 32gb flash drive solved the problem for me. I never did figure out what the problem was. The few pcs i experienced the issue on all had different parts, mobo, cpu, hdd and/or ssd. IMO I would say it was something with my install disc. Stay [H]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top