Troubleshooting Win7 Installation: Blank Drive List on Asus M5A97 Motherboard

[biferi]

I have an. Asus m5a97 let r2.0 motherboard and I am installing win. 64 bit.

When I get to the screen that asks me what drive do you want to install to the list of drives for me to pick from is blank.

My motherboard is. Sata3. And all my drives are. Sata2. Does this keen anything??

Please help and yes I did try other hard drive and nothing.

Thank you for the time.

 

[Studiot]

I don't know that particular mobo, but you often have to set the mobo in bios to recognise and boot from SATA drives, before trying to load and OS.

W7 means copying an image file, not actually installing in the conventional sense. When you install XP you get an early option to install SATA drivers if needed (they are supplied by the mobo manufacturer) early on in the install process.

 

[biferi]

Yes win xp. Asked you for data drivers. But win does not.

Are you telling me I may have to install. Data drivers?

I thought win could handle. Data drives by itself?

 

[Studiot]

but you often have to set the mobo in bios to recognise and boot from SATA drives, before trying to load an OS.

Please note (I have edited it slightly to correct spelling).

 

[biferi]

I did go into. Bios and set boot option one DVD drive and boot option two data hard drive.

But if I understand you right you are telling to set the bios to see all. Data drives right??

 

[biferi]

Is this what you meant??

 

[Studiot]

No. As I understand what you have said, your system is already booting from the DVD drive W7 disk, but cannot recognise a hard drive to load it to.

This is because you have not set up the SATA in BIOS.

Go to

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/M5A97_LE_R20/#download

and download the manual.

Look in section 3.5 of the manual to find how to configure the mobo to recognise and boot from a SATA hard drive. This is under the advance menu in the BIOS control.

 

[biferi]

OK I think this may help.

I did have win7 installed and it was working.
Then I would came back to my system to see it re started and tells me. Please re boot and pick a boot device.

I used a jumper to clear the. Cmos. And unplugged every hard drive but the c. Drive that has win installed on it.

Then I boot to. Bios. And re load default settings and save and re start.

It boots to windows and all is OK.

So I turn the system off and plug in my other two hard drives and re start and it tells me re boot and pick boot device.

So I unplugged all my drives and re load default bios. Settings. And nothing it stii says re boot and pick boot device and it won't load win?

 

[rcgldr]

The hard drives on a PC are logically numbered by the BIOS. The BIOS will include a setup, such as drive boot order or drive priority order, that sets the logical numbering of drives. You should be able to change this order until you finally get your system to boot up. Once it's booting, write down the BIOS drive ordering so you won't have to do this by trial and error if it happens again.