Dv6500 - Windows 7 - SATA AHCI Drivers

[puredef]

Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion Dv6500 and recently purchased a copy of the Win 7 Home Premium edition.

I've been toying with the idea of downgrading like many others to XP for some time now but decided to stick it out. the system needed to be rebuilt but i didnt think that i would have too many problems formatting the system as Win 7 uses the Vista kernel.

However, to my surprise Win 7 doesnt notice the SATA HDD and i cant find the AHCI drivers anywhere on the site for Win 7 - has HP finished testing these yet? i note that a thread existed a couple of months ago and they were waiting to be signed off / certified can someone assist me with locating the driver needed so that the HDD is picked up?

The issue i have is that i nolonger have an OS, I've just spent in excess of £100 on a copy of Win 7 to find that the drivers aren't on your site and the machine didnt come with a copy of the Vista OS CD for me to re-install when i purchased it from Comet.

Regards

PD

[erico]

Have you tried the Windows Update site? Frequently drivers may be found there.

regards,
erico

[puredef]

Hi,

I havent actually, didnt think it would be so obvious to be honest. always looking for the more complicated solution.

Will windows have AHCI drivers though?

PD

[erico]

There are other ways. If you download and use CPU-Z to determine which chipset is in your motherboard.  Frequently the manufacturer's website can often have good results for a driver search.

Post your chipset here and I will see what I can find.

Why AHCI instead of the standard SATA drivers?

regards,
erico

[puredef]

Don’t i need a OS to use CPU-Z?

Also. the reason I’m looking for AHCI drivers rather than SATA is because you cannot enable SATA capability in the BIOS as its locked down.

Its not an Intel set either its running and AMD 64 with NVidia chipset.

I'm slowly running out of steam with this one. any other advise would be much appreciated. tried to install XP last night and load the drivers that way. Vista and again. the HDD Drivers wouldnt load as well as Windows 7. No joy what so ever.

Should have got a Dell laptop, it seems so silly that the machines that are built for 'Vista' are only able to run Vista and the original OS needs backing up rather than the OS cds or driver cds be sold witht he machine.

[erico]

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puredefecation wrote:

Don’t i need a OS to use CPU-Z?

Also. the reason I’m looking for AHCI drivers rather than SATA is because you cannot enable SATA capability in the BIOS as its locked down.

Its not an Intel set either its running and AMD 64 with NVidia chipset.

I'm slowly running out of steam with this one. any other advise would be much appreciated. tried to install XP last night and load the drivers that way. Vista and again. the HDD Drivers wouldnt load as well as Windows 7. No joy what so ever.

Should have got a Dell laptop, it seems so silly that the machines that are built for 'Vista' are only able to run Vista and the original OS needs backing up rather than the OS cds or driver cds be sold witht he machine.

Which Nvidia chipset does CPU-z report?

North and Southbridge please.

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[puredef]

Hi,

Apologies for late reply. i've been away for abit.

I've listed below the details / spec of the machine. i've even tried installing Vista 32bit HP from fresh and i'm still experiencing difficulties with the HD not being recognised.

Microprocessor: AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-58

Video Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Hard Drive: 250 GB (5400)

Microprocessor Cache: 512 KB + 512 KB Level 2 cache

Again you cannot change the settings from ACHI to RAID. HP have locked the bios down.

To enable you to find more info about the machine if needed i've also listed the details for the laptop.

Product code: pavilion 6500

s/n: cnf7431bdy

PN: KB365EA#ABU

Regards

PD

[puredef]

Sorry, i also missed your question about CPU-Z.

I was under the impression that in order for me to be able to use CPU-Z i would also need an OS. currently i have no OS. neither do i have any way of installing an alternative OS from Vista or Win 7 as the HD isnt recognised.

PD

[CherylG]

This model should not require AHCI/SATA drivers...even with XP.Only Intel based machines have that requirement, until you get into the much newer AMD models. I have seen and helped with numerous downgrades to XP on the dV6000/dv9000 series_none of the AMD models required an extra driver.

How did you wipe the hdd..maybe a problem there. I would also enter BIOS setup,F10 key at power on, and run the hdd diagnostics.

[puredef]

Thats really strange, because when installing any type of OS the HD isnt being picked up at.

The system see's the two partitions but they appear as not being recognised. when you attempt to format them, you get an error message.

At first the system returned a blue screen of death. so we attempted to re-build the system with the recovery discs made when the system was first purchased. but there were some issues when recovering the system. when prompted to format the drives the system fell over half way through when we were promted to insert the 2nd disc. we have run the diagnostics under the bios and everything is fine. all checks pass.

When you attempt to attempt fix from Windows (Installer) the system falls over again. i was considering purchasing the recovery disc from HP this evening (Best to serve - HP Care)  .... can you vouch that this will get me up and running with the original installation of Vista HP? then i can perhaps attempt to upgrade to Win 7 afterwards?