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Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?

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4wd:
This will remove AHCI from the system drive while you install - you can change it all back afterwards or in the event that you still have a problem with the install hanging/BSODing.

Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?
Referring to the picture of your motherboard above:
1) If your system drive is connected to one of the SATA ports in the RED outline, connect it to one of the ports in the GREEN outline instead.  (If both are in use, leave the DVD connected to one and temporary unplug whatever other device is connected.)
2) Turn the computer on and press DEL to get into the BIOS.

At the BIOS Main page, use the cursor keys to go to Integrated Peripherals and press Enter.
Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?

On the Integrated Peripherals page, use the cursor keys to go to Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode and change it to IDE if it isn't already.
Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?

Then hit F10 followed by Enter to accept the changes and reboot.

If the system fails to boot saying it can't find a System Disk, (or just doesn't boot), reboot and press F12 to get to the Boot Menu - you can then choose which drive to boot off and it should boot normally.

It sounds like your system is set to boot CD first so it should still boot the Win7 DVD OK and allow you to choose where to install.

After you've done the OS install you should be able to move the drive back onto it's original SATA port and reverse the change in the BIOS, (if you made one), and the system will still boot.

Depending on how anal that particular BIOS is you may need to go into Advanced BIOS Features and change the order of your drives under Hard Disk Boot Priority, but that's no problem.

I remember mouser saying something like once you get past 4 or 5, weird things start happening.-superboyac (November 09, 2010, 09:37 PM)
--- End quote ---

This must be a YMMV thing because I regularly have 7 drives connected without a problem - it also has a lot to do with how good the BIOS is so a bit of luck is probably involved.


I hate this stuff.
--- End quote ---

I love the smell of frying transistors first thing in the morning.......


Makes the fault easier to spot :P

superboyac:
4wd, thanks!  I know it's late...
I've been meaning to get back to this.

So, here's how I have the drives plugged in right now.  I have all the drives (including the system drive) plugged into the yellow slots.  That's 5 drives.  The system drive, two extra internal drives, and two external drives.  Then, I have the SATA dvd drive plugged into one of the purple slots.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying to take my SYSTEM drive off of the yellow plug and put it on the purple plug, along with the DVD drive.  Is that correct?

Why does this fix my problem, I'm just curious.  I do think you might be right about all this, because I remember dealing with those plugs and ahci stuff, etc, when i was adding all the drives.

4wd:
Why does this fix my problem, I'm just curious.  I do think you might be right about all this, because I remember dealing with those plugs and ahci stuff, etc, when i was adding all the drives.-superboyac (January 19, 2011, 09:11 AM)
--- End quote ---

It doesn't 'fix' your problem as such, it gets around a couple of problems that W7 throws up with AHCI drivers.

There are two main problems regarding the install of W7, wrt AHCI:
1) If you install W7 while the OS drive is connected in AHCI mode it will, literally, take hours for the installation.  Both times I've done it, it took 4-5 hours.
2) If you install W7 while all drives are connected in IDE mode, then the install will happen in an hour BUT you will be unable to change to AHCI, (not without a fair bit of trouble anyway), because the driver won't exist in the OS since it wasn't installed.  You'll get BSODs.

So the best way to get around these is to install W7 while the system drive is in IDE Mode, (for install speed), but the rest are in AHCI Mode, (to install the driver).

Gigabyte boards give you these two SATA ports where you can set a different mode on, (the purple ones), so what you can do is:
a) Set the purple ones to IDE Mode
b) Set the yellow ones to AHCI Mode
c) Put the system drive on the purple ports

The effect of this is:
1) The installation of W7 will happen at its normal rate, ie. it will take about an hour.  (This get around problem number 1.)
2) The AHCI driver is installed, so when you switch the system drive to AHCI, (you can do this by moving it back to a yellow port), W7 will just install the driver for it and ask to reboot.  (This gets around problem number 2.)

This is how I've previously installed both XP and W7 when I wanted AHCI enabled and it's worked without a problem.

superboyac:
Thanks 4wd!  That's one of the best written answers I've ever received.

Now I have just a couple of more questions, but you cleared a lot of things up that I've been wondering about for a long time.
1) Do I need AHCI?  The only reason I came across the issue in the beginning was because adding drives and they weren't being recognized.  Someone told me to enable AHCI, and I did and it worked.  That's the only reason.  I don't think I did to take advantage of AHCI.  It sounds like I should do it the way you've written just to have all my bases covered.  Right?

Well, I guess it's just that one question.

4wd:
If you're going to be hot-plugging SATA drives then you should enable AHCI mode because the ability to hot-plug correctly is provided in the AHCI driver.

There are some boards that can hot-plug without AHCI being enabled, (it all depends on the driver), like my old AsRock 939 board but it was an exception.

AHCI also enables NCQ, (Native Command Queuing), if the drive supports it - the benefits of which are dubious in a home type environment.  Staggered Spin-up is part of AHCI - some drives enable it via hardware, (eg. Samsung - no ground on SATA power connector pin 11 causes Staggered/Delayed Spin-up).

There's most likely other AHCI specific things but in your case the main one is hot-plugging.

You can grab the AHCI specs from Intel, if you're interested, here (1.2MB PDF).

Actually, you could leave the system drive connected to the purple ports in IDE Mode since you're not likely to ever want to hot-plug it, (I'm reasonably sure there won't be any performance hit but f0dder would probably be able tell us for sure). :)

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