Aurora R10, HDD replaced, can't install Windows

Regular HDD, SSD, or NVMe drive?

Are there any other drives connected to the system besides that drive?

It's a new HDD 2TB, currently all other devices are disconnected from it aside from a wired keyboard and monitor during the set up and only the USB drive with windows on it.

Re: Upon receiving the new HDD I've made sure that the drive was initialized and set up but after putting into the computer and using a USB drive with Windows to reinstall on the new HDD the windows installer is not detecting the Hard Drive for installation

can you put this new hdd in another desktop and then use the USB (prepared using Microsoft media media tool) to boot the pc then look for the hdd?  most of the time a new hdd should come up as present in unallocated status (meaning not initialized, or no partition present).  I usually then create partition in Windows 10 installation environment. 

Re: After selecting to initialize the drive using the F12 key

I never use F12 to initialize hdd.

You should be able to boot from a USB stick prepared with the Microsoft windows media creation tool, by invoking the one time boot menu (F12 key).

From there you should be able to select the new drive as installation destination.

I'm using the two options that present for a second upon the boot up. F2 for BIOS or F12 for Boot Options.  I also do not have another desktop to put the drive into.  When connecting the drive using a SATA to USB to a laptop, the laptop does detect the drive without issue.

Re: F2 for BIOS or F12 for Boot Options. 

The F12 one-time boot menu displays the devices that you can boot from including the diagnostic option.

when you enter boot menu,

The boot menu options are:
● Removable Drive (if available)
● Optical Drive (if available)
● SATA Hard Drive (if available)

do you confirm you see the sata hdd with correct model number of new hdd listed?

if yes make sure your Windows 10 installation media USB is prepared properly (does not hurt to do it one more time).  Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

another thing to try is to put a Windows 7 or 10 installation DVD in the optical drive just for test to see if installation will find the hdd.

So that basically initializes the installer for windows which the computer auto goes to if plugged in.  However even though the HDD is showing on the BIOS and in the physical disk management, the windows installer is not showing the HDD.  I'm selecting the custom install on the windows installer since this is a fresh hard drive and not previous files to pull from and says that I may need drivers for the HDD to be recognized by the windows installer.

I'm not sure if I need to have this computer completely reimaged back to it's original factory settings by Dell or if there is a step I'm missing.

So when I do the F12 to go to boot mode with just the HDD inserted and connected I see the following options:

UEFI Options

Onboard NIC (IPV4)

Onboard NIC (IPV6)

Other Options:

BIOS Setup

Diagnostics

device Configuration

BIOS Flash Update

When I run the diagnostics it passes all tests.

If I select the device config option I'm given options for controller management, array management and Physical disk management.   If I pull the BIOS it is showing the HDD connected to the port it's plugged into on the mother board.

Checking the physical disk properties it is showing the correct info for the HDD, if I go to operations and initialize the drive that is where it was getting stuck on the alienware screen unless I had the USB drive connected with the windows installer.  In the installer this is where it still doesn't seem to show the HDD.  I'm not sure if there are missing drivers that is making it to where the HDD doesn't show up on the windows installer.

Did you set SATA operation as AHCI in Advanced tab of R10 BIOS?  Pls upload some screenshot of your BIOS. SATA should be set as AHCI.

Yes, without setting it to AHCI you need to add the RAID drivers to the installation media.

That's actually a common issue since by default they seem to ship with RAID enabled.

Also, the USB has to be bootable and it should show up as a bootable USB device under the F12 one time boot menu.

Yes that was the major issue there. Now the windows installer is providing an error I responded to a previous post with the new error I'm running into.

Re: The setting was incorrect in the bios, I changed to AHCI and now the windows installer is detecting the drive.

that is good news.

Re: The drive has been formatted and has a partition set up but windows is displaying a message: We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. 

you should first delete all existing partitions by choosing each one and clicking delete.  after all is deleted (when there should be only one unallocated partition remaining), click new to create new partition, then click format the main partition (not the system reserved one).

The setting was incorrect in the bios, I changed to AHCI and now the windows installer is detecting the drive. The drive has been formatted and has a partition set up but windows is displaying a message: We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files. when connected to the laptop it shows it as active and has a partition.

Thank you for all your help community, it was definitely the BIOS that was originally holding me up and those final steps worked and I am back online!