I have been dealing with this problem for over a week now and am beyond frustrated. I've been trying to upgrade my OS from Windows 7 Pro x86 to x64. My motherboard is capable of 64 bit, and I want to be able to expand my RAM to 8 GB, rather than the bull**** 4GB cap with the 32 bit version. Well when I try to format my hard drive at the Installation screen, my hard drive shows up but it gives me no "Advanced options" for formatting and all it gives me is the "Load Drivers" option. I have tried to figure out what drivers I need but google has just been giving me a bunch of idiots who don't know what they are talking about, so I need some professional help here. So I tried to install the new version over the old one. Apparently that was a dumb idea. Now I have Windows Setup Files on my HDD that are ****ing things up. This is a Dell Latitude E6510, Intel i5 processor, running Windows 7 Pro. Dell / Intel mobo. Hard Drive is a 128GB Samsung SSD PM800 I have tried flashing the BIOS, changing from RAID to AHCI to ATA, and nothing will work. I need these drivers and I need to know how I can get them so I can get the damn installation disk to load the drivers so I can format the hard drive. Any advice appreciated.
Just an FYI - the BS of 4GB max memory on 32-bit is a byproduct of the 32-bit platform, and not Windows. With that said, if the Windows 7 installation is detecting your drive during setup SATA drivers should not be needed. Have you simply tried deleting all drives and partitions on the drive-select page? It may not be giving you a format option because a Windows installation is found. To download the chipset drivers simply visit Dell's Support website. Enter in your service tag, and download the 64-bit chipset drivers. Extract the the files to a USB and browse for them during the install. You'll be looking for an .inf file, which will probably be listed in an x64->SATA directory or something similar.
I believe this is where you've gone wrong, no? Couldn't you install fresh on another drive or another partition? Use another PC to back up the files on this one, then wipe this one clean? EDIT: I agree with the above, it's the detection that is messing you up. Don't know past that. I've never tried installing a 64-bit over a 32-bit, but... I guess it's doable since you said your motherboard can do it.
maybe try Samsung Magician http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/samsungssd/downloads.html plug the ssd into another computer and load the software, you should be able to destroy what's on it "Secure Erase" and then load Windows with no partition and it'll create the 2 partitions automatically
Yeah I don't need the partition, I'm ready to install x64 but its just weird that I can't format the SSD at all. Will try loading ini file off USB to see if that works.
Don't try and format it. Choose "Delete Partition." Windows will delete the partition/drive, and then install it on the new unallocated space. This is the equivalent to doing a clean format.
Also, be sure TRIM is enabled in Win 7 for your SSD. Oh and make sure to do a firmware update via Samsung magician
- Open CMD with Admins rights Type in fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0 [This turns on TRIM] Type in fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify [If it returns 0, TRIM is enabled] - Open CMD with Admins rights Type in powercfg -h off [This disables hibernation. This is to be used if you want to clear space and don't need the hibernation feature] - Open My Computer and right-click main SSD drive. Should be C: drive. Click properties, and disable the allowing of the files to be indexed on the drive. [This cuts back on small writes to the SSD to prolong it's lifecycle] - Click START button and type in services.msc. Open file. Find "Superfetch", double-click, and choose disable under Startup Type menu. [This cuts back on small writes to the SSD to prolong it's lifecycle. Can be left on if you want, but Windows 7 has this feature disabled when it detecs an SSD] Also, make sure you have your SATA controller set to AHCI and not IDE.
