First Build, Vista Won't Load Please Help

[JJ78787]

Hi,

Been reading this forum for a few weeks before I decided to take the plunge and go ahead with my first build. But I am really stuck now.

I am having problems loading up Vista. It seems that vista cannot recognise my hard drive. I get as far as the screen 'where do you want to install windows' which is blank and asks me to load a driver. I have tried putting in the two floppy disks that came with the motherboard, nothing happens. I tried the CD then came with the motherboard nothing happens. Out of the 6 buttons available all but two are greyed out. They are the refresh button and the load driver button.

I have tried to install my old copy of XP on the computer as well to see if it was just something to do with vista however XP cannot find my hard drive either. I have checked all the connections and changed the sata connection cable and moved its position on the motherboard but still the same problem.

The hard drive does appear on the BIOS.

I am really stuckand any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

System:-

Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
CellShock 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit 2
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Sony AW-G170A 18x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer
Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 / 2.4 GHz ( 1066 MHz ) - LGA775 Socket - L2 4 MB
Intel Desktop Board D975XBX2 - Motherboard - ATX - i975X - LGA775 Socket
BFG TECHNO GF8800GTX 768PCIE

Thank

J

[moodyblues100]

Not sure about Vista, but with XP it was necessary to install the drivers for the SATA drive. I believe the prompt was to hit F6 to load the drivers. It was only on the screen a short time, so you have to be aware and look for it otherwise it will just try to continue to install and fail.

[JJ78787]

Hi thanks for your reply, I had tried that however while my keyboard (PS/2) works fine when attempting to load vista, pressing F6 had no effect during the installation of XP. Can anyone else help.

Thanks.

J

[spurflhr]

J,
My brother had the same problem and I am going to be loading Vista Ultimate today, on my first build. We did everything and asked everybody. We tried F6 and more. Last night he said that he was able to proceed through the screen that was not recognizing his drives and that he just waited and it loaded. When I was picking my OS up last night at the store a guy in line told me to just let it sit for like 30 to 45 minutes and that to load Vista you just have to be patient. This may not help you much but Vista is so new that there may not be much help out there yet. I won't be loading mine for a few hours, but if I discover more I will let you know.

[JJ78787]

I managed to sort the problem. I had plugged the SATA cable into the wrong socket on my motherboard.

There are blue and black sockets and I had the cable plugged in to the blue ones (I know not the most technical way of explaining it) but it turns out that it needed to be plugged it to the black sockets.

Anyway Vista had now loaded.

Thanks for your help.

J