OK, guys. I flipped over the power supply, drilled out the rivet, and turned the chassis fan around.
I also used Parted Magic to do a secure erase on the SSD. Thanks to
Driver 944 and
eskro!! I was shocked that it took all of 6 seconds!!!
Now I'm having problems trying to install Windows 7.
I remembered that I have a Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack Upgrade disk with one license left over, so I figured I'll use it on this HTPC and save myself some $$. The upgrade disk only works if a previous version of Windows is installed, so I chose Windows XP.
I did like eskro said, and set bios to AHCI sata type, but quickly found out that this doesn't work with XP. So I switched the bios back to IDE, installed Windows XP without any problems, updated drivers, and everything is working OK.
Now, for the problem I'm having: I went back into the BIOS and switched back to AHCI. When I try to do the upgrade to Windows 7 with a USB stick I made with Wintoflash, I get past the first screen where it asks which language, etc. The next screen pops up with an error: "
A required CD/DVD device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please install it now."
I googled this error, and get conflicting info. I didn't even have a CD/DVD drive installed in the case, so I know the error is really about something else. I followed someone else's advice, and downloaded ALL the Windows 7 64 bit drivers from ASRock website for my motherboard. I thought maybe it was a SATA controller or something. So I put all the drivers on the USB stick, and the next time I got the error, I browsed to the drivers, one at a time; but none of them work. It seems like the W7 installation can't access the SSD, or maybe I need to get a Windows 7 driver for the USB stick. I do have a spare DVDRW drive laying around. Maybe I'll burn the Windows 7 ISO to a blank DVD, and try to install from that
Anybody else have any other suggestions?
***UPDATE***
I tried switching back to IDE mode, this made no difference.
I also tried installing from the DVDRW drive. I still get the same error. I looked on OCZ website for drivers, but all they have is firmware updates. I doubt I need that.
The weird thing is, I had no problem doing a fresh Windows 7 OEM install on the Acer Revo with this same SSD.
I'm literally stumped at this point.
HELP!!