"No drives were found" during windows 7 Installation

I have XPS-15 L502 with 1TB HD

I have ONLY ubuntu 12.04 installed. It runs just fine. No other OS is installed.

While trying to re-install Windows 7 using the Recovery Disk Dell provides, it asks me "Where do you want to install Windows".

But no drives are visible. It says "No drives were found. Click Load Driver to provide a mass storage driver for installation".

I want to COMPLETELY erase EVERYTHING on my HD and install windows 7 or 8. (I have both Installation disks). Here's the screenshot of the error.

enter image description here

shashlearner

Posted 2013-06-01T09:07:40.567

Reputation: 143

I found the answer here, after much googling. Mayowaola's answer: http://superuser.com/questions/391232/windows-7-install-no-drives-were-found

– shashlearner – 2013-06-01T09:57:47.650

Answers

After you get past the language selection, select Repair, open Command Prompt and type the following commands (pressing Enter after each one):

 diskpart

 list disk

 select disk [n]

 clean

Restart the system, and now you should be able to complete the installation.

Explanation about the commands

list disk: Displays a list of disks and information about them, such as their size, amount of available free space, whether the disk is a basic or dynamic disk, and whether the disk uses the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style. The disk marked with an asterisk (*) has focus.

select disk [n]: Selects the specified disk and shifts the focus to it. n Specifies the disk number of the disk to receive focus. If you do not specify a disk number, the select command lists the disk that currently has the focus. You can view the numbers for all disks on the computer by using the list disk command.

clean: Removes any and all partition or volume formatting from the disk with focus. On master boot record (MBR) disks, only the MBR partitioning information and hidden sector information are overwritten. On GUID partition table (GPT) disks, the GPT partitioning information, including the Protective MBR, is overwritten; there is no hidden sector information.

stderr

Posted 2013-06-01T09:07:40.567

Reputation: 9 300

It worked like a charm!!!! – Ritesh Kumar Gupta – 2015-01-23T17:49:46.653

How do you open the command prompt after selecting the language? There is no such option offered – Frikster – 2016-02-08T10:32:29.913

Thanks. I posted the answer, but SE changed it to a comment citing "Trivial Answer". :P – shashlearner – 2013-06-03T16:53:55.267

This dosn't work for me! – Chlebta – 2013-12-17T12:39:33.493

drive option advanced ? (bottom right)

Or boot on liveUbuntu usb or CD, try Gparted and format and create your ntfs, reboot on windows install, should be right :)

z8po

Posted 2013-06-01T09:07:40.567

Reputation: 66