Help! Windows wont see haed drive after erase

Okay so..

Laptop shipped with windows 8 (or was it 7 with an upgrade to 8 later as that seems to have been an option from some vendors)?

Performed a secure erase using partition magic with the drive in situ.

Windows install now asks for storage drivers.

You have no supplied disks other than windows 8.

Tried PB drivers (although there doesn't seem to be a direct model no match).

Sounds odd but I have seen the storage driver issue with some optical drives, is this a desktop or laptop? If possible (prob more likely on a desktop) make a USB installer and disconnect the optical.
 
I'd start by trying another drive, could be the software you use to wipe it just finished it off.
 
neil_g said:
Okay so..

Laptop shipped with windows 8 (or was it 7 with an upgrade to 8 later as that seems to have been an option from some vendors)?

Performed a secure erase using partition magic with the drive in situ.

Windows install now asks for storage drivers.

You have no supplied disks other than windows 8.

Tried PB drivers (although there doesn't seem to be a direct model no match).

Sounds odd but I have seen the storage driver issue with some optical drives, is this a desktop or laptop? If possible (prob more likely on a desktop) make a USB installer and disconnect the optical.
Click to expand...

It's a laptop.

Someone on another forum has suggested that I may need to format the drive using PM before it will be recognisable.

I'm wondering if the drivers are correct and just can't be written to the drive in its current state?
 
EspressoJunkie said:
It's a laptop.

Someone on another forum has suggested that I may need to format the drive using PM before it will be recognisable.

I'm wondering if the drivers are correct and just can't be written to the drive in its current state?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't expect to see the storage driver request, that's windows saying it cannot control the motherboard Sata with its native driver rather than anything disk related. Stranger things have happened though..

Going back to my last, it was w8 pre installed and not a separate upgrade?
 
EspressoJunkie said:
It's a laptop.

Someone on another forum has suggested that I may need to format the drive using PM before it will be recognisable.

I'm wondering if the drivers are correct and just can't be written to the drive in its current state?
Click to expand...

That sounds logical although I'd try plugging into another machine first. Do you have another hdd you can try?
 
neil_g said:
I wouldn't expect to see the storage driver request, that's windows saying it cannot control the motherboard Sata with its native driver rather than anything disk related. Stranger things have happened though..

Going back to my last, it was w8 pre installed and not a separate upgrade?
Click to expand...

Originally the laptop shipped with 7 but I purchased an upgrade to windows 8, it's that downloaded iso file that I'm using. As I said I've done this exact same install on this drive before flawlessly. It's only since using PM that there's been an issue.
 
EspressoJunkie said:
Originally the laptop shipped with 7 but I purchased an upgrade to windows 8, it's that downloaded iso file that I'm using. As I said I've done this exact same install on this drive before flawlessly. It's only since using PM that there's been an issue.
Click to expand...

See my previous post, or if you can caddy the drive off another machine just try to install windows on it there, to see if it will. You can obviously abort it, or reformat it whilst caddied also
 
EspressoJunkie said:
Originally the laptop shipped with 7 but I purchased an upgrade to windows 8, it's that downloaded iso file that I'm using. As I said I've done this exact same install on this drive before flawlessly. It's only since using PM that there's been an issue.
Click to expand...

ahhhh.... do you have the win 7 installer?

i bet the win 7 disk has the storage driver, the win8 installer then used the already installed driver and/or updated it as part of the install..
 
neil_g said:
ahhhh.... do you have the win 7 installer?

i bet the win 7 disk has the storage driver, the win8 installer then used the already installed driver and/or updated it as part of the install..
Click to expand...

I don't think it came with physical media, and I don't recall making any backups.

The last time I did this though, I put Win 8 straight onto a new empty drive and it worked.

I guess I could get a copy of 7 from somewhere, try to install it, and then install 8 as an upgrade.
 
After a deep format like that, maybe all it needed was an initialisation through Device Management in windows? I formatted a few drives which I couldn't see until I had named them. I did have the Operating System on another drive though.
 
Have you tried installing a Linux variant (Mint perhaps) from a live CD?
 
Just as a matter of interest, are you installing from a CD/DVD or from a USB flash drive?

I have occasionally had problems on some machines installing from a flash drive but installing from a CD/DVD has been fine.
 
well that is bizarre. ive chucked disks out of a mac into a pc before and windows installer has been fine..

ho hum i was wrong (im big enough and ugly enough to concede that :D )
 
Gr8Shot said:
See my previous post, or if you can caddy the drive off another machine just try to install windows on it there, to see if it will. You can obviously abort it, or reformat it whilst caddied also
Click to expand...

Voila
 
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