Vista disk question

[casioman]

No, but I just wanted the description of the disk in the boot order. This will tell us firstly if it is there, and secondly if it is a standard hard drive or a RAID volume.

Although it may be worth pulling the DVD drive - just in case.

Well the drive is being found as it is listed in the standard CMOS section and is in the boot order list - I will disconnect the drive to see if this makes a difference

[casioman]

DVD has now been disconnected - HDD is the 1st boot device - fired up the machine - still getting the A disk read error occurred.

Any thoughts?

[casioman]

Well I foudn this but I could only try the bootsect command from within the DVD (vista disk) command prompt which didn't cure the problem either

It makes me laugh that M$ thinks that this can be done from within Vista when the error appears even before start up :rolleyes: :confused:

[dab]

It may be worth reseating all the hard drive connections - power cable, and both ends of the SATA cable.

You could also try booting from the Vista DVD, and selecting the recovery options - it sometimes helps.

What is the exact entry in the boot order - does it mention WDC or NV.
It's hard to see what is going on here. If I was doing it myself, I would boot from the Western Digital DLG disk, then do a full test and full erase of the Hard drive. I would then boot from the Vista DVD and do a clean install, creating a partition and formatting NTFS. If Vista wouldn't see the disk, I would use the F6 option to load drivers.
The problem you have with doing this is that DLG won't see the hard drive, which suggests a RAID controller - hence the questions.

Dave

[casioman]

It may be worth reseating all the hard drive connections - power cable, and both ends of the SATA cable.

You could also try booting from the Vista DVD, and selecting the recovery options - it sometimes helps.

What is the exact entry in the boot order - does it mention WDC or NV.
It's hard to see what is going on here. If I was doing it myself, I would boot from the Western Digital DLG disk, then do a full test and full erase of the Hard drive. I would then boot from the Vista DVD and do a clean install, creating a partition and formatting NTFS. If Vista wouldn't see the disk, I would use the F6 option to load drivers.
The problem you have with doing this is that DLG won't see the hard drive, which suggests a RAID controller - hence the questions.

Dave

Dab I have already done the recovery from the vista DVD which is what I have tried on these commands . The Vista install does need the driver as mentioned previously when I wondered if the ultimate version was needed (which it was not). The BIOS is seeing the HDD as mentioned before and once the SATA driver is installed so is Vista.

I think the problem is that vista is not assigning this drive as C but as J as when I have done the recovery that is the letter it gives.

It may be the connections as in the order as I have left the drive connected but disconnected the blu ray DVD drive which was connected to the last connection on this cabled (they were daisy chained off each other). Perhaps I need to set the HDD to that connection :confused: .

I will give your suggestion a go about using the WD disk from their site to format this drive.

Thanks for your help Dab I have appreciate it , lets hope windows 7 works better

[dab]

One other thing to consider - if windows has assigned drive J it usually indicates either existing partitions on the drive or something such as an internal card reader grabbing the letters (best to disconnect these during the install, and put them back later).

[casioman]

One other thing to consider - if windows has assigned drive J it usually indicates either existing partitions on the drive or something such as an internal card reader grabbing the letters (best to disconnect these during the install, and put them back later).

Well it has built in 15-1 memory card reader and I have had a usb stick plugged in for the HDD drivers otherwise Vista couldn't see the drive.

Also there was another partition on this drive as Acers tend to create a C: and D: . The drive has now been completely formatted using the WD DLG I didn't get chance to install Vista last night as it was reaching 1am.

I will attempt the install tonight, to unplug the 15-1 card reader would be very difficult, would I be okay to leave this plugged in? and with the USB stick , could I plug it in when it is needed perhaps?

[dab]

to unplug the 15-1 card reader would be very difficult, would I be okay to leave this plugged in? and with the USB stick , could I plug it in when it is needed perhaps?

If you can unplug the card reader it would be better, they do have a habit of grabbing the drive letters you want - XP is normally the worst. Usually you can trace the cable from the back of the reader to where it connects to the motherboard, which is hopefully a plug that can be removed - sometimes these are a proper plug, but they can be just a usb connector which fits onto one of the mobo usb headers. If it is the latter, note the orientation of the plug/wire colours and the position on the header (which could have 5 pins on one row and 4 below).

You will need to leave the usb stick, as it will need the disk drivers before you can partition the drive.

Good luck

Dave

[casioman]

If you can unplug the card reader it would be better, they do have a habit of grabbing the drive letters you want - XP is normally the worst. Usually you can trace the cable from the back of the reader to where it connects to the motherboard, which is hopefully a plug that can be removed - sometimes these are a proper plug, but they can be just a usb connector which fits onto one of the mobo usb headers. If it is the latter, note the orientation of the plug/wire colours and the position on the header (which could have 5 pins on one row and 4 below).

You will need to leave the usb stick, as it will need the disk drivers before you can partition the drive.

Good luck

Dave

Easier said than done, this card reader has a series of cables and I would have to label each one,I cannot disconnected it at the card reader end because the cable goes over the top of the DVD blu ray drive with no space to see it.

I may be able to disable it in the BIOS though

[casioman]

Right the disk as mentioned before has been fully formatted, I managed to unplug the card reader - booted up vista installed it and still getting the disk read error..

I think I need a partition program that boots from DOS and can handle SATA drives, when I tried some of these on the Ultimate boot CD they failed to load.