# Intel SSD hard drive isn't recognized by my system



## vmarkary (Feb 9, 2008)

Hi,
I just thought to replace my hard drive on Dell E1505 laptop so I bought Intel SSD 32G. I've removed the old one out put Intel in, went to Bios saved setting to boot from CD ROM and popped in Vista CD.

1) Vista. After getting to installation screen and selecting new isntall, I get a screen telling me that there's no drive to install on and I have to load drivers. Went to repair it clicked on view my computer and saw that Vista created temporary letter for SSD "X" drive and installed installation software onto it. But it wouln't install a clean copy of Vista on it.

2) Xp Pro. Then I tried to install on Xp Pro my proved platform for many years. I've got to installation screnn and pressed Enter to install a new copy and got an error message saying that Windows didn't find any drives to install to. 

What do I do? How can I get Windows to install a new copy to my new hard drive? Maybe I should switch away from Windows completely, but I use this for Quickbooks Pro to for bookkeeping. Should I go to Mac. I've seriously been considering it.

Thank you in advance for help.


----------



## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

Did you install drivers for your new HDD (F6 during installation of XP)?


----------



## vmarkary (Feb 9, 2008)

Intel SSD didn't come with any drivers. It was just the hard drive. I wonder if I have to download drivers seperately from Intel and try to load them. Usually hard drives don't come with drivers, I've never had to install a driver manually. Do you think that's the problem?


----------



## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

Yep. I believe you need to do that. Try this:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/fil...=Windows+Vista*&lang=eng&strOSs=163&submit=Go!

Please keep us posted.


----------



## AlphaWolf13 (Feb 11, 2009)

I'm not sure how much this will help, but it's worth a try.

I had this same error with a Dell computer this morning and installing a new Sata drive to it. I tried installing XP to it, and it would not detect the drive what-so-ever. I went through all this and that to try and figure out what was wrong, to turn out there was a simple setting in BIOS that was causing the problem.

Check your BIOS and see if there is a setting with options on how to read the Hard Drives. Like "RAID AHCI" or "RAID SATA", and so forth. If you find this, switch it to "RAID SATA" and see if windows setup will detect it now. Worked perfect for me.


If it doesn't, remember to change the setting back. At the very least it's a simple setting and won't cause any harm if it doesn't work.


----------



## ckerno (Feb 19, 2009)

Check your BIOS and see if there is a setting with options on how to read the Hard Drives. Like "RAID AHCI" or "RAID SATA", and so forth. If you find this, switch it to "RAID SATA" and see if windows setup will detect it now. Worked perfect for me.


Worked perfectly for me also. Thanks!


----------



## AlphaWolf13 (Feb 11, 2009)

ckerno said:


> Check your BIOS and see if there is a setting with options on how to read the Hard Drives. Like "RAID AHCI" or "RAID SATA", and so forth. If you find this, switch it to "RAID SATA" and see if windows setup will detect it now. Worked perfect for me.
> 
> 
> Worked perfectly for me also. Thanks!


Anytime!! Glad to know it worked for you .


----------



## vmarkary (Feb 9, 2008)

I just checked my BIOS and it doesn't have that option since this is a laptop. I know on desktops it give that option because there's room to build RAID array, but laptop... Unless of course it's a Toshiba Qosmio or something like that... But my BIOS doesn't have Sata Raid or Sata AHCI option at all. Also the link that you have specified earlier is for Intel Matrix driver which is for RAID ICH6 or higher. I'll still give it a shot and see if it'll load intel matrix driver and recognize the hard drive. I'll post the results hopefully tonight. Thank you all for your involvement and trying to figure this out with me. I really appreciate it.


----------



## AlphaWolf13 (Feb 11, 2009)

vmarkary said:


> I just checked my BIOS and it doesn't have that option since this is a laptop. I know on desktops it give that option because there's room to build RAID array, but laptop... Unless of course it's a Toshiba Qosmio or something like that... But my BIOS doesn't have Sata Raid or Sata AHCI option at all. Also the link that you have specified earlier is for Intel Matrix driver which is for RAID ICH6 or higher. I'll still give it a shot and see if it'll load intel matrix driver and recognize the hard drive. I'll post the results hopefully tonight. Thank you all for your involvement and trying to figure this out with me. I really appreciate it.


Does your BIOS detect the drive? 

If it does, try and see if you can hook up the drive to a friends computer, either externally or as a secondary, then use disk management under administrator tools to partition it and see if that works. 

I honestly have NO clue if that will help, but a shot in the dark is better then no shot at all.




And if that doesn't work try to download the Hard Drive diagnostics from the manufactures website and test the drive to make sure it's not faulty.


----------



## vmarkary (Feb 9, 2008)

All right. Figured out the problem. The drive that was shipped to me was faulty. I connected it to my desktop and Desktop didn't detect it either. I connected another SSD hard drive from Patriot and that one detected right away. So, I'm shipping it back to Newegg tomorrow to get a replacement. Thank you guys for your input. I appreciate it.


----------

