Windows 7 reinstall on new SATA drive

Advanced format drives REQUIRE F6 drivers aka INTEL RST 9.6

All new drives will be 4k advanced format drives.

"Windows Setup could not configure Windows on this computer's hardware" installation error on a Windows 7-based based computer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2466753

Only Ancient Sata drives 120 gigs or smaller will not need INTEL RST.

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218571en?language=en_US

Windows 7 comes with Matrix storage manager 8.9

The INTEL MSM is not INTEL RST

Windows 7 Requires INTEL RST 9.6

Intel RST replaces Intel Matrix Storage Manager.  HOWEVER you cannot update to your hearts content from 7 to 8 to 9 to 10 to 11 to 12 to 13 etc.  As the drivers and chipsets get newer the older ICH5 6 7 8 9 etc are dropped from support.  

downloadcenter.intel.com/.../15251
Version 9.6.0.1014  may be the max for your motherboard

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2682&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ESB2 SATA RAID"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C3&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA RAID"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C6&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH7MDH SATA RAID Controller"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/5/3400 SATA RAID"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_282A&CC_0104= "Intel(R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E/5 Series SATA RAID"

NEWER Versions (Not necessarily Supported on OLD chipsets)

Microsoft* .NET Framework 3.0 or newer is required to be installed on the system in order for the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology User Interface to install.  Note that not all Microsoft* Operating
Systems have .NET 3.0 or newer installed by default

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/studio-desktop.html

	Supported OS	Download
Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, v.9.0.0.1007, A00More details	Windows Vista 32-bit Windows Vista 64-bit

Description	Supported OS	Download
Realtek RTL81XX PCI-E Network Connection, v.2.0.0.6, A00 Realtek LAN Diag tool for windows 7More details	Windows 7 64-bit Windows 7 32-bit

Description	Supported OS	Download
Intel Matrix Storage Manager, v.8.9.0.1023, A01 Intel Matrix Storage Manager (Application)More details	Windows 7 64-bit Windows 7 32-bit

Thank you.  This is the most thorough and helpful answer I've received on several forums.  I think you're on to something.  I've been provided a Windows 7 SP 1 on a flash drive from MSFT and ISO.  SP 1 should remove any compatibility issues with advanced format disks. 

My system is a Dell Studio Desktop D540 with a Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9400 w/6MB cache.  The original hard drive was a Seagate Barracuda 7200 750 GB S2.  I'm replacing it with a Seagate Barracuda 7200 750 GB E2.  (Not sure if the E2 is that different.) 

I load windows through the license acceptance and then custom install.  Next screen where you'd normally pick a partition it says "No drives were found.  Click load driver to provide a mass storage driver for installation.  (It's there, it sees the name, sees it in BIOS, and passes all diagnostic checks in BIOS.)  Presumably I need to get a driver installed although the disk should contain the needed drivers.  As far as I can tell all the drivers available on DELL are meant to be installed after the operating system.  I've tried downloading dell drivers onto an ISO as well as extracting the files onto a flash drive.  It always says "No signed drivers were found.  Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers and click ok".  I'm not sure I'm giving it the drivers in a format it can read. I extracted the 3 dell drivers above onto a flash drive, unpacked them on the flash drive, and it doesn't recognize them when it asks for signed drivers. 

Any further help is greatly appreciated.

I adjusted the BIOS from the factory setting ATA to RAID. 

I don't get as far as you do in the installation process per your screenshot.  I am in the "Collecting Information" stage; you can see in the lower left hand corner of screenshot 4.  "No drives were found" well before the stage in your screenshot. 

I downloaded the Intel RST F6 64 bit (I'm using windows 7 64) and the STOR_allOS_9.6.0.1014_PV.exe.  The program successfully recognized the driver in the F6 file. 

 It doesn't find the .exe file as you might expect since windows hasn't properly started yet.  I hope... I don't have to run a bunch of files from DOS, but I tried that.  It said that it is missing a subsystem to support the image type. 

I could get it to accept most of the Vista chipsets; first 6 or so on the list below.  All of the Family USB Enhanced Host Controllers failed as it was looking for an updated driver. 

It doesn't find any other drivers short of trying to run other exe files from DOS.  It needs some other driver before it gets to this stage?  Most of the drivers are required to be run from within windows.  Or am I really that far out of my depth? 

Thanks for all your help. 

Before ANY OS install you have to CTRL R or CTRL i  from BIOS and Initialize the drives as Raid 1 aka Mirrored container.

Raid ZERO Striped is never a good idea because if you lose a drive you lose all data. RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits ("stripes") data evenly across two or more disks, without  parity information, redundancy, or fault Tolerance. Since RAID 0 provides no fault tolerance or redundancy,

You then have to UNZIP the INTEL drivers onto flash drive to F6 point to them.  XP has to use floppy disk.  The ZIP files must be UNZIPPED to floppy disk or flash drive etc. Then POINTED TO via LOAD DRIVER.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15251

STOR_all32_f6flpy_9.6.0.1014_PV.zip - F6 driver diskette for Windows* 7 (32-bit editions), Windows* Vista* (32-bit editions), Windows XP* Home, Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Media Center Edition.

STOR_all64_f6flpy_9.6.0.1014_PV.zip - F6 driver diskette for Windows 7 (64-bit editions), Windows Vista (64-bit editions) or Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition.

F6 drivers are required for advanced format drives.

 http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/deploying-dell-systems-with-advanced-format-hard-drives

Dell support was completely useless and didn't even try to help.  MSFT tech support tried really hard, but wasn't able to help.  Thanks to Speedstep for trying, good info and thorough.  But, after 2 weeks of searching finally found this link that allows you to manually setup a partition in DOS.  It was simple after that as you might expect. 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2674-partition-volume-create-new.html

I didn't use this one, but it has instructions for keeping separate partitions which I would have liked to have tried for a backup partition.  Seems pretty straightforward though.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html