Windows 7 not recognizing hard drive that works?

Hey all, i've installed windows 7 on my laptop successfully with no problems. now, i'm trying to install it on a desktop, but windows 7 does not recognize the seagate hard drive in either DOS installation mode, or windows 7 installation mode while in windows xp pro. it recognizes my western digital hard drive(drive C:), but not my seagate barracuda ata IV(model # st380021a, which is drive F:). when i remove my western digital hard drive and have only the seagate connected as the master, the computer automatically boots from the windows 7 dvd, but does not find any drives. i tried installing it from windows xp pro(my western digital, drive C:, has XP pro), but only drive C: (western digital) shows up, the seagate(drive F:) doesn't.

here's the kicker; the seagate is working fine, because it shows up in 'my computer', shows up in disk management as 'healthy', i was able to copy files to and from the seagate. i did the "change drive letter and paths" for the seagate also, and still nothing. what could the problem possibly be? i tried looking for 'drivers' for the seagate hard drive, but they're nowhere to be found- since there's an option to look for drivers during windows 7 installation. also, the seagate does show up in the bios as well. i'm puzzled, any help would be appreciated. thanks in advance!

Hello and welcome,

I'm no hardware expert and my explanation would probably confuse you so please click on one of the links at the bottom of this page as it is a slightly common occurrence.

I assume your seagate is a Serial-ATA? If windows does not see it during the install process as a drive to install on, you may need to supply the drivers for it via USB drive, CD/DVD drive, etc.

Now this is a shot in the dark, but I could not get win7 to see my S-ATA drive as well for several weeks. Last night I all but gave up until I decided to remove a jumper from the S-ATA drive that limitied the transfer rate to S-ATA I speed of 1.5Gb/s. Once I took that jumper off which allows speeds of 3.0Gb/s Win7 totally loved it and have had no problems since. I didn't even need to supply the drivers during the initial installation, Win7 saw the drive automatically.

Good luck

Originally Posted by reghakr

Hello and welcome,

I'm no hardware expert and my explanation would probably confuse you so please click on one of the links at the bottom of this page as it is a slightly common occurrence.

hey, thanks for the welcome. i checked the related threads at the bottom, but none of the problems relate to my problem.

Originally Posted by mike2k9

I assume your seagate is a Serial-ATA?

nope, it's an IDE\ATA hard drive.

Well that blows my suggestion outta the water. Have you tried using the jumper in the Cable Select position or Mastered with the optical drive?

Also, does the BIOS see the Seagate drive when it is the only hard drive attached?

I'm stretched thin for anymore suggestions here.....

Have you tried formatting the HD (from XP) and then booting the Windows 7 DVD?

Originally Posted by mike2k9

Well that blows my suggestion outta the water. Have you tried using the jumper in the Cable Select position or Mastered with the optical drive?

Also, does the BIOS see the Seagate drive when it is the only hard drive attached?

I'm stretched thin for anymore suggestions here.....

tried cable select and mastered with the other drive, windows 7 still doesn't see the seagate. and when i used cable select, the computer freezes on the bios screen for about 30 seconds, and windows 7 dvd gets frozen at the "preparing setup" screen.

Originally Posted by davehc

Have you tried formatting the HD (from XP) and then booting the Windows 7 DVD?

yeah, already formatted the seagate completely(slow format) in XP.

How about go into disk managment on your xp box and delete the partition. I'm thinking that even though you are formatting it, the partition is getting currupt somehow or unreadable to windows 7.... as ludacris as that sounds. Its a long shot but im also out of ideas if that fails.

Originally Posted by Anti455

How about go into disk managment on your xp box and delete the partition. I'm thinking that even though you are formatting it, the partition is getting currupt somehow or unreadable to windows 7.... as ludacris as that sounds. Its a long shot but im also out of ideas if that fails.

interestingly enough, your method worked! it seemed the partition was getting corrupt or unreadable to windows 7. so i was able to successfully install w7 on the machine by deleting the partition . unfortunately, the sound card(turtle beach santa cruz) would not work, even when you install the drivers orignally for XP in compatability mode, and there are no drivers for the sound card on w7 obviously. it says "driver install error" and "no sound output device is detected", so basically no sound. so i just may have to install XP back on that machine, unless anyone knows what else i can do?