BACKGROUND:
1. I am not an IT specialist, but a reasonably knowledgeable amateur.
2. On recommendations from knowledgeable friends I am assembling following system:
MOBO: ASUS P5N-T Deluxe LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard (Installed with latest BIOS)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz LGA 775
SATA HDD: Seagate SATA/300 Barracuda 500GB (ST3500630AS)
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066
Graphics: EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
I have no other HDD and the ribbon cable has not been used in the build.
PROBLEM:
The build was easy except for the installation of the CPU fan.
On initially switching on I pressed ‘Delete’ to enter BIOS setup. On the ‘Main’ menu pane, ‘Primary IDE Master’ is set as [None]. My Seagate SATA HDD is recognized, however, and connected to ‘SATA 1’.
The problem appears when I try to install Windows Vista 64. On initial boot, no HDD is detected, although the CD auto loads with ‘Windows is loading files…’. I get to the Vista ‘Install Now’; enter the product key; accept license terms; choose ‘Install a clean copy of Windows…’.
Now I am asked ‘Where do you want to install Windows?’ The only option is the HDD called ‘Disk0 Partition 1’ (Size=465.8 GB, Type=Logical). I click ?Next? and a warning appears, ‘Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation’.
In case the driver is not correct I have installed SATA_Raid drivers for Vista 64 from the Asus CD supplied with the MOBO (although I am not confident that these are even needed as I only have a single HDD).
I _think_ that the install problem stems from the BIOS not recognizing my Seagate SATA HDD as a Primary IDE Master, but I am not sure.
I would be most grateful for any advice that helps me get the PC up and running! Thanks in advance.