HP Pavilion dv6911om - unable to install Vista on new hard drive

R

rangywulf

The old hard drive completely failed to the point that I am unable to recover any data on it. So I put in a new hard drive and went to reinstall Vista and got the lovely error about needing to load a driver for the hard drive. I've tried every Vista driver listed and it won't load the driver for the hard drive. I flashed the BIOS, still no luck. The BIOS does not offer any options to change the settings on how to read the hard drive.

Any suggestions on what else I could try?
 
Somewhere in your bios there will be a setting to select which mode the hard drive is running in. You may well have a SATA drive which Vista should have drivers for but in this case you need to set the hard drive to run in IDE mode then it should install. After installation load all the mobo drivers which should then allow you to set the HD back to sata/raid operation which is much faster.
 
Thanks for your reply. I've scoured the BIOS for that specific setting and none to be found.

It is a SATA driver that vista is asking for. I used the one provided by HP and it doesn't work.
 
This is the best I could find for instructions relating to the SATA settings in the Bios.

In the Bios under System Configuration tab you should see a SATA native support option. It's most likely to be set to Enabled set it to Disabled and reboot. Try the install again.
 
There is no setting like that in the BIOS. All I have are Main, Security, Diagnostics and System Config. Under System Config, there is no option for RAID or SATA. Just boot sequence, Language, Button Sound, and Processor C4 State.

I did follow the directions listed for Vista installation. The problem is that the SATA driver provided by HP will not load even though it says it's compatible.

The new hard drive did not come with an installation disk. It's a WD Scorpio Blue
WD6400BEVT. I'm starting to wonder if this drive is just not compatible with this system. I have been able to plug it into another computer and format the drive. So I know it is a good drive.
 
Well, I guess we can call this issue resolved. It turns out the hard drive controller has completely failed. So I'll just end up using the stupid thing for parts.
 
There is no way that this new drive is incompatible. The hard drive controller is the driver that you have not been able to install. At what point of the installation are you trying to install it, it should be at the point you have to select the drive to format and install to.

You may find that the only way to do this is to integrate the drivers onto a copy of the Vista disc. Is your Vista disc a retail version or was it supplied by HP with the laptop as a system recovery disc. Was it the Intel Matrix Storage Manager that you downloaded?

This guide shows how to integrate the driver with your copy of Vista.
http://techrena.blogspot.com/2009/01/integrate-your-own-drivers-or.html

Just replace WinXP with Vista and use a DVD as a CD won't be big enough.

This may be a shot in the dark as I have never heard of it being necessary to install SATA drivers with a Vista install, Vista has SATA drivers included which should automatically load up during the installation. Is the Vista disc in good condition?

I can't see what you are doing so just wanted to make sure you have not missed something or are doing something in the wrong order. Would be a shame to scrap the PC if there is a way out.
 
I try to install it exactly where it asks me too. I did try to intigrate the driver and it still failed. I have another working laptop harddrive that I dropped into it with Vista on it. It said no Operating System found. I put in a working drive with XP on it. Same response. Same thing with a drive that has win 7 on it. The laptop apparently does not want to read any hard drive that I put into it. I've used the disks supplied by HP, I've used my own OS disks. I've used floppy and jump drives. I checked the wiring on the motherboard to make sure that the hard drive connection is secure and it is. I checked for blown capacitors. None found. I've even tried different RAM. lol... as you can see, I'm pretty much at the point of banging my head against my desk and tossing this thing.

I haven't tried to install linux yet, but since I can't get it to read a hard drive, I'm not sure it will work. Oh! nearly forgot. I tried the hard drive scan in BIOS. It said I needed to replace the hard drive. This is the new hard drive mind you. So I plugged it into my desktop and ran several tests on it. They all came back fine.
 
Sounds like you have done everything you can do. The only other thing I might be tempted to try is to see if a different version of the Bios is available from the company that made the mobo. Or just simply clearing and flashing the Bios again with the one from HP.

Other than that I think I would have to agree the mobo has failed beyond repair.
 
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