Build or buy...

[donnato]

...sail boat..?..Including lessons..? Seriously, I weighed the options and settled on building. With my lappy I`ve had to call support twice and both times they got me back up in like 15 minutes...since I have an asus mobo I have that support. This is an experiment to see if I can do this(with site help of course),..Next time things may be different but for now I`ve got a 1/2 built PC in my closet and more parts on the way. Next time things may be different. Thank you VincE.

[Qwaxalot]

I build my own every time. Not because I object to buying pre-built, but because I can never seem to find the capacity I want. As far as support is concerned, I mostly don't need it. Although I have to say ASUS support, although spotty, is the most technologically competent.

[donnato]

Yup Qwax...I just updated my parts list with linx to the details. There`s no way I could find this prebuilt ...or..in kit form for the price methinks. Although I suppose it`s possible. I`m sold on Asus through experience and ownership.

[donnato]

Ok well...here we go. I still have some neatening up to do but everything`s mounted and connected. Just waiting for the monitor. So here it is...

[HeyYou]

COOL!!!! Eagerly awaiting results.

[donnato]

Thanks HY...me too...still...

[donnato]

Ok yyaaay I`m up and running. Question...In the past, on my laptops the hard drive was partitioned into "C" and "D" drives (single hdd) but after installing windows 7 64 bit home premium there`s just a "C" drive with the OS stuff in it`s own little corner. What`s up here? Do I need to do this myself or is this normal?

[Artisanix]

During system installation usually there's a chance (at the beginning) to repartition HDD, and install OS on one of the partitions.

After system has been installed the only way to repartition a drive is to use a special kind of application that should be run (booted) either from CD or another drive or USB.

In your case GParted should do the trick if you want to have more partitions than just C:

[HeyYou]

I actually recommend having more than one partition, makes reinstallation easier, as you can download everything you need onto the D: drive, and when you wipe the O/S, all that stuff is still there.

Partition Magic is another good one.

[donnato]

Thank you folks. At this point I find that this has to be rectified before going any further. Since there`s nothing installed that can`t be replaced (properly this time) I am going back to the very beginning. With the OS disc loaded I restart into bios boot menu. Here the disc drives are shown and oddness begins, I`m shown my hdd and two dvd drives (I have only one installed) with one dvd drive tagged as having the boot media and all devices identified by their manufacturer`s model numbers which are correct. I am directed to press F8 to go into the setup menu. A small box containing the model numbers for the drives allows me to select the dvd drive as the boot device. This takes me to a window that shows me how my hdd is configured and I can delete each entry till we`re back to a bare drive. Below this window are some buttons one of which is "new" I click that and now have a small variable box showing the total available capacity of my hdd in MBs. First time I did nothing here just tried to let the program auto populate the disc, not good and I don`t think i need go into detail here. Next I divided by 2 and proceeded through the process which then showed me the previous window with the drive populated thus...:

Disc 0, Partition 1, 100MB, 95MB free, System

Disc 0, Partition 2, 128MB, 128MB Free, MSR (Reserved) ...this seems to be one point of contention...

Disc 0, Partition 3, 228GB, 228GB Free, Primary

Disc 0, Partition 4, 228GB, 228GB Free, Primary

I hit OK and proceed through the entire rest of the installation until I arrive eventually at my desktop where I open "My Computer" from the start menu and find :

Disc 0, Partition 1, 100MB, 95MB Free, (system)

Disc 0, Partition 2, 228GB, 228GB Free.

Both labeled "C" with my dvde drive as "D".

Now, to return to the beginning where I mentioned letting the program auto partition and to show those results (where I am now) this is the config. that gave me:

Disc 0, Partition 1, 100MB, 95MB Free, System

Disc 0, Partition 2, 456GB, xxx Free

Again...all labeled "C" with my dvd drive as "D". I`ll update this when I get home tonight and try it again after checking that my hdd is correctly plugged into the proper port on my mobo, and go back into the bios to check the accuracy of this post. It`s mostly correct in the format results as I`ve taken some notes, just maybe a digit value off a bit is all.

I appreciat all your help and patence. Good luck.

[HeyYou]

As part of the install process for Win7, it should ask you at some point which partition you want to install to. Use THAT utility to nuke all partitions, create one partition of like 50gig for the O/S, and designate the rest as Drive D. Tell windows to install to C:.

I have never used a bios utility to partition drives. I have yet to see one that works worth beans.

[donnato]

In the process the install to option only concerns which drive, the partition hasn`t been set yet. Unless I`m missing a step but I`ve been through this 10+ times now with varying degrees of the same result...no "D" partition...Thank you for your info. This is frustrating since I can go no further till this is resolved.

[HeyYou]

I think there is a 'footnote' when it asks you where to put it, Press 'some key' for partition information, or some such.

[AndalayBay]

Yeah, it's been a while since I've done this too, but I think there's an option for doing a custom install. Then when it comes up asking where to install to, you can choose to change the partition information.

[donnato]

Maybe...when I get home and double check where the hdd`s plugged into the mobo and get back up I`ll go in and see. Thank you again.

[Meo]

The Asus P8P67 LE is a dual memory channel board, which means to get the best performance, you should put both memory stick in the blue brackets.

[donnato]

Ah thanks Meo. That all depends on if I can get the hdd partitioned properly. The memory may become moot if this won`t work. AndalayBay I`m sorry I didn`t see your add. I am doing this in custom setup and I haven`t seen an option to choose which partition to install to...maybe because no matter what I do it fails to set up a "D" partition at all. Just one big "C" drive with 100MBs cordoned off for the system.

[AndalayBay]

That sounds like it isn't detecting your DVD drive. Are you running SATA? Check your mobo manual and make sure you don't have to configure something to get all the SATA channels working. Although if you've just got a hard drive and DVD drive, I'd just put them both on the same channel.

[donnato]

Interesting AndalayBay thanks I`ll check it but t does load and boots right up no problem except that it won`t partition the hdd. In the photo above the hdd and dvd leads are the two flat black leads plugged in beneath the grafix card on the far right under the horiz. blue heatsink thingy. Those are SATA 3.0 ports. The hdd is a 3.0 I`m just assuming the dvd is not 6.0 which is on the same side towards the top with one lead going into it. The dvd came with a disc but it`s just labeled as Nero, which I figure is just an app. and doesn`t contain drivers. In the advanced settings the SATA ports are configured to IDE instead of AHCI which I`m told is better anyways and I should leave it set there.

[AndalayBay]

I did run into an issue getting mine up and running at one point, but I can't remember which machine it was I've had a couple of cases where I jumped on new tech so early that it turned out the mobo didn't completely support it, so there was some messing around involved...

Have you tried changing to AHCI and see if that helps? I remember that you had to use IDE at one point, but I'm sure if that's the case with Win 7 or not. I'd have to reboot my machine to see what I've got it set to

Also, some hard drives have a jumper setting for enabling the higher speed - I'd check to make sure you have that set. I would imagine it would be now - if your drive even has that as an option. Once again it was something that was needed during the transition from SATA 1 to SATA 3.

[donnato]

Ok I checked and my hdd is in the #1 SATS 3G port with the dvd drive in the #2. Naw no jumper on or for my hdd. Next up is change to AHCI and reboot to see whaty happens because here on the larger screen, during POST there comes in the upper left corner a flashed message with 3 or 4 lines of white "yadda yadda" then just below that "no hard drive detected"...yet it shows up in bios and in the start menu under my computer as drive "c"... All I can do is see if I`m missing a prompt somewhere. The whole reinstall process takes an hour or so each time so I`ll hang around for a bit then I probably won`t see you again tonight.

[donnato]

Yaayyy...I`ve got it..."C" ...and..."D" drives...DVD drive is now "E" ...as it should be........THANK YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH!!!

[Arion]

[AndalayBay]

Great! What was it? Sorry I had to disappear for dinner and a bit of tv

[donnato]

AB I really don`t know which particular change I made. I changed the SATA stuff to all match AHCI, but I also hit a couple extra buttons in the config. menu...I`m kinda like this... right now...tomorrow...or soom ...I`ll probably be able to list the things I did better....................Thank you so much.