This christmas I was lucky enough to find in my stocking 2x1GB sticks of RAM - how nice of santa I thought as I'd been wanting such gifts in order to enable me to realistically upgrade to Vista.

So I started to install vista (I have done so recently on my laptop... successfully) and then it came to asking me what drive I would like to install it on. Except that it didnt detect either of them.

I currently have two Maxtor 7 Y250M0 250GB hard drives in use. At the stage in the vista installation process it suggests that I select a location for the hard disk drivers. I have searched the internet for the correct ones with little success. Maxtor (as many of you no doubt know) has been taken over by Seagate tech.

Also of note, the version of vista I am installing clean over the hard disk (or intending to anyway) is a 64 bit ultimate edition.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Perhaps not much help, but does the XP installation find drivers for them?

Sounds like you may need a SATA driver to load during install. Check your motherboard manufacturer's site. Not the website of the hard drives. Also try 1 of them hooked up and see if it works any better. Do you have them in a RAID or anything?

I do not have any kind of RAID in place for both my hard drives. I attempted to put one in place for installation of vista purposes, but im not going to lie to you, as far as RAID is concerned im starting to get out of my depth. I've just tried running the installation disk with a single hard drive plugged in to no avail.

Furthermore, I've looked for drivers in regards to my mobo

I have a Winfast NF4SK8AA motherboard which is by foxconn. I've tried finding appropriate drivers but nothing problem solving is coming to the forefront.

Is it essential do you think to have a RAID system in place?
Another question (and this one is no doubt stupid) but my motherboard has 6 SATA ports on it 1-6 (obviously) does it matter which ones they are plugged into or does this have no bearing on it?

Okay, I have read some about your mobo, and I see that the four SATA connectors along the side are controlled by the nForce 4, and the two SATA connectors along the bottom are controlled by a silicon 3132.

Have you been plugging your drives in to the bottom ports? Try using the side ports, and that might fix your problem. The two bottom ports are intended for RAID. If it still doesn't work, then go into the BIOS and make sure that RAID is disabled. Since your mobo uses a nForce 4 chipset, then you should be able to install Vista without needing additional drivers. I am able to with my nForce 4 mobo.

If you do want to use RAID, then you will probably need additional drivers when you install Vista. Those drivers should be available on the manufacturer's website. I really don't recommend RAID for home users though. RAID 0 may give you a slight performance boost in some applications, but if one drive goes out you loose everything. RAID 1 uses one drive as a backup drive, which can be good. But it's kind of a waste since it backs up a lot of stuff you don't need. And if a file gets corrupt on one drive, then it gets corrupt on both drives.

I had no problems with my nForce4 motherboard either.

Regarding the RAID/S-ATA connectors, that's why I asked if you had used XP before. Guess we're waiting for your reply now.

Problem solved guys, thanks for all the assistance. Particularly Chugworth, you really hit the nail on the head with the switching of the SATA ports and completely disabling all RAID functions.

Thanks again.