X48T-DQ6 installing Vista 64 problem

[gazgaz]

Having terrible trouble installing Vista 64 on a single Sata HDD (Western Digital Caviar SE16 - 500GB).


Power management has been set to:
Hpet Mode 64 Enabled

Peripherals tested:
IDE - No suitable drivers
AHCI - Finds GIGABYTE GBB36X*
Raid/IDE - Finds GIGABYTE GBB36X*

* When I click on the driver, Vista appears to do something, hangs for a bit, then says no suitable device was found (I find this strange because the "Hide drivers that are not compatible with hardware on this system." is ticked).

I have plugged the Sata HDD into one of the purple ports on the MOB and made sure I have disabled SATA RAID/AHCI Mode and SATA Port0-3 Native Mode in the BIOS.

The HDD shows up in Post.. but has not yet been reformatted. I have not placed any jumpers on the HDD.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am the point of sending the HDD back.

[Lsdmeasap]

Do you have your drive plugged into the purple ports? Those are for the Gigabyte Driver you have loaded.

The BIOS settings in Advanced Page for disks are top for Intel controller, middle for Gigabyte.

Please remove any jumper you see on the drive as well, it will limit the speed, or set it as shown if you have one. I only link this because you mentioned it incase you did not see this before >>>
Answer

Sounds like you have things correct, maybe that drive needs to be formatted for first use with the Manufacturer tools, some do and since they are available for your drive it may need to be done >>>

For Dos on your PC (CD ISO)
WD Support > Downloads > SATA Hard Drives > WD Caviar Blue / SE / SE16 (SATA II)

For DOS on your PC (Floppy)
WD Support > Downloads > SATA Hard Drives > WD Caviar Blue / SE / SE16 (SATA II)

For windows on another PC (CD ISO)
WD Support > Downloads > SATA Hard Drives > WD Caviar Blue / SE / SE16 (SATA II)

You can do it from DOS or another PC, run the program and choose "Setup Hard Drive for First use Operating System"

I do also see many DOA's with this particular drive >>>
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eywords=&Page=

So if you can you might want to test and format it from a different PC to be sure it is OK, which will not do what the above tools do. The tools set the drive as "Active" and format it. So if you have hirens boot cd or similar or A good partition program you can do the same with it

[gazgaz]

Thank you for a speedy reply.

I have since tried installing XP. It is definitely looking like a broken HDD. Thanks for the links! I will get a replacement pronto.

[Lsdmeasap]

No problem, I try to answer fast when I am around because I know how it sucks to wait on things like this.

Can you test it on another PC to be sure? Just wondering, maybe save you some time.

I would also try the above tool to set it up before I was sure it was DOA

And then I have to say Seagates Is all I will buy because of Many DOA WD's, it can happen with any brand just never has with Seagate for me I guess

[VorLonUK]

I'm a Western Digital fan and have never had a DOA drive. I have had the odd drive poorly packed from the supplier that caused bearing damage on one.

I tend to always buy from companies that I know will pack their drives well for shipping.
The only othet thing I have had (that can happen to any drive) is for it to start using it's "spare" sectors, so you see the reallocated sector count moving in the SMART summary.

Good thing with Western Digital for me here in the UK, is they offer "Advance Replacement". That way you don't have to wait for your "faulty" drive to go back and then a replacement be issued. They send the new "advance replacement" straight away and atleast you have the correct packaging to send the "faulty" drive back at your cost.

Edit:-
Lsdme,

I recently threw out a 1.6GB WDC drive as it was taking up room and of course its just too small for modern day use - yet it still worked!