Windows 7 install oddity

[Little_4nic8er]

I have to say I am rather stumped as to what is going on.

A little history.

I have used the same disk to install W7RC for months on several different HDDs. I am usually well into the install routine within 1.5 - 2 minutes after booting up the PC.

Since I added this Intel 80GB SSD, it literally takes 10 minutes before I see the setup part. (Past the language selection screen. After the "Setup is starting" part finishes.)

This is what happens.

1. I reboot the PC.
2. It boots from the DVD and loads the Windows files. (Seems the same as before.) And it moves on to that blue back ground it has during the install.
3. It then decides to take a 3 minute dirt nap, with no HDD, or DVD light activity.
4. The DVD then fires back up, and at the 5 minute mark I see the language select screen and hit next.
5. It then states "Setup is starting". and sits there until the 10 minute mark and I can finally see the drives.

Now the kicker, my SSD is not even in the list after waiting 10 minutes to get that point. It's formatted, and has W7 installed on it currently. I had done a hotswap of the drives while powered down earlier, and it borked my boot up. I needed to reinstall anyway for other reasons so no biggie. All other drives showed up, but the SSD.

I will check the BIOS when I get back upstairs to see if it appears there. I jsut wanted to get this posted.

Any ideas what the heck is going on? Everything ran fine on the SSD. Benchmarks checked out. I just don't get how adding an SSD could add such a delay to the Windows install. Especially when it's a "speedy" product itself.

Plus the fact it's missing from the drive options.

I'm going to head back up and see if I can get this sorted. I would appreciate any help you folks can offer.

Thanks.

P.S.

This all started because I was getting a "Non-system disk. Hit any key" when booting up. I forget the software, but an HDD/SSD tool said the the C drive was not a system drive as well. (Being the SSD.)

P.P.S.

Ok, the SSD was missing from the BIOS, but after swapping them back to their original places it is back.

I'm not even sure this has anything to do with the SSD at this point. It just started immediately after installing it. Possibly AHCI, or even the DVD drive are the culprit, I don't know.

 

[Tech]

Did you ever find a solution to this? I did an install on one machine and it worked fine...but the second one is doing exactly what you described. I suspected the drive as it had previously been used in another machine and had really poor I/O. I just ran to Fry's and picked up a 1TB Hitachi and it's doing the same thing. Running the latest BIOS, defaulted the settings for grins and still does the same. I read a thread on MS forums saying to reduce memory to 2GB, install the OS and then add the memory back. About to give that a shot but was curious if you ever managed to get the install to work.

 

[Little_4nic8er]

Nope. My SSD died and I got a new mobo since posting this, so I had to reinstall on my old HDD, same deal.

It does it with the W7RC disk, and now my full OEM copy of Ultimate.

I'll have to assume it's the DVD drive at this point. I'll be getting my old mobo back in play with a new DVD drive next week so I'll know then.

Most everything else seems to spin up just fine though. *shrug*

Let me know if that RAM thing works. I have 6GB myself.