This instruction describes in detail what to do if, when installing Windows, you are told that it is impossible to install Windows on the disk partition, and in detail - “Installing Windows on this disk is not possible. Your computer hardware may not support booting from this disk. Make sure that the controller for this drive is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

If you do select this section and click "Next" in the installer, you will see an error stating that we were unable to create a new or find an existing section with a suggestion to view additional information in the installer log files. Below we will describe ways to fix this error (which can occur in Windows 10 - Windows 7 setup programs).

As users' computers and laptops become more and more diverse in disk partition tables (GPT and MBR), HDD operating modes (AHCI and IDE) and boot types (EFI and Legacy), errors when installing Windows 10 are also becoming more frequent. 8 or Windows 7 caused by these settings. The described case is just one of these errors.

Note: If the message that installation to the drive is not possible is accompanied by error information 0x80300002 or the text “This drive may soon fail,” this may be caused by a poor connection of the drive or SATA cables, as well as damage to the drive itself or the cables. This case is not considered in the current material.

Fixing the error “Installation on this disk is not possible” using BIOS settings (UEFI).

Most often, this error occurs when installing Windows 7 on old computers with BIOS and Legacy boot, in cases where AHCI mode (or any RAID, SCSI modes) is enabled in the BIOS in the operating parameters of SATA devices (that is, hard drive).

The solution in this particular case is to go into the BIOS settings and change the hard drive operating mode to IDE. As a rule, this is done somewhere in the Integrated Peripherals - SATA Mode section of the BIOS settings (several examples in the screenshot).

But even if you don't have an "old" computer or laptop, this option can also work. If you are installing Windows 10 or 8, then instead of enabling IDE mode, I recommend:

1. Enable EFI booting in UEFI (if supported).
2. Boot from the installation drive (flash drive) and try the installation.

True, in this option you may encounter another type of error, the text of which will inform you that the selected disk contains an MBR partition table (correction instructions are mentioned at the beginning of this article).

I myself don’t fully understand why this happens (after all, AHCI drivers are included in images of Windows 7 and higher). Moreover, I was able to reproduce the error for installing Windows 10 (the screenshots are from there) - simply by changing the disk controller from IDE to SCSI for the “first generation” Hyper-V virtual machine (that is, with BIOS).

I couldn’t check whether the specified error will appear during EFI booting and installation on a disk operating in IDE mode, but I assume it will happen (in this case, we try to enable AHCI for SATA drives in UEFI).

Third-party AHCI, SCSI, RAID disk controller drivers.

In some cases, the problem is caused by the specific hardware of the user. The most common option is to have caching SSDs on a laptop, multi-disk configurations, RAID arrays and SCSI cards.

If you have reason to believe that hardware features are the cause of the error “Windows cannot be installed on this drive,” the first thing you should do is go to the official website of the laptop or motherboard manufacturer and see if there are any drivers there (usually presented as an archive, not an installer) for SATA devices.

If there is, download, unpack the files onto a USB flash drive (inf and sys driver files are usually present there), and in the window for selecting a partition for installing Windows, click “Load driver” and specify the path to the driver file. And after installing it, it becomes possible to install the system on the selected hard drive.

We hope that this material will help you solve your problem. If you have any questions or additions, write in the comments.

You may encounter the message “Windows cannot be installed on this disk” at the stage of selecting an operating system installation partition if not supported download from the selected storage medium. The reason that caused this obstacle is stated in the installer's message.

Reasons There may be several such problems:

• worn out or damaged SATA cable;
• disabled hard drive controller in BIOS;
• malfunctions the storage medium itself;
• absence AHCI driver included in the Windows distribution;
• does not match the format BIOS - UEFI or Legacy - disk partition style - GPT and MBR, respectively.

Let's talk about the last two problems in more detail.

Problem with AHCI

The appearance at one time of the connection mode for the SATA storage media controller AHCI, which replaced the old IDE, entailed additional requirement to the composition of the Windows distribution kit - the presence of the corresponding drivers. AHCI driver support is announced in OS versions starting with Vista.

But Windows 7 does not always want to be installed on a computer with active mode SATA AHCI controller. There are two ways out here - change of distribution(AHCI drivers can be cut by packagers of pirated assemblies) and AHCI switching to old IDE mode. In the latter case, you need to enter the BIOS, find the section for setting the parameters of the SATA controller (sections may be called “Integrated Peripherals”, “Storage Configuration”, etc.) and change the preset AHCI to IDE.

Convert MBR to GPT

Windows will not install if the disk has wrong style sections:

• GPT, while the UEFI interface in the BIOS is disabled;
• MBR, while UEFI mode is active and Windows is installed from UEFI bootable media.

The last case is the most common: everyone who either replaced a new motherboard with BIOS UEFI support, or connected HDDs or SSDs with MBR partitioning for PC assembly. There may also be two options for getting out of the situation:

• refuse from the advantages of UEFI, disable this interface in the BIOS (switch to Legacy) and continue installing Windows on an MBR disk;
• convert it in GPT.

If there is no important data on the hard drive, transformation from MBR to GPT will be carried out automatically Windows installer. To do this, at the stage of choosing the OS installation location, you need to delete all existing partitions.

And as an installation location indicate whole unoccupied space.

You need to complete the Windows reinstallation process, return to the old system and install this program. Or boot up with LiveDisk with AOMEI Partition Assistant included, if you already have access to the old Windows impossible. Program developer - AOMEI company - provides the ability to create emergency bootable media with your products on board. To create such media, you need to use another product of the company - AOMEI PE Builder. Also, AOMEI Partition Assistant, among other software for system engineers, is included in LiveDisk AdminPE.

To convert disk from MBR to GPT, follow the steps as in the screenshots below.

After converting the section style again launch Windows installation.

Convert GPT to MBR

If the question is the opposite - for example, the motherboard do not support BIOS UEFI, but the assembly of components included an HDD or SSD with GPT partitioning, nothing left other than convert it in the MBR. This can be done in the same ways as described above for the reverse process:

• by removal all partitions using the Windows installer, if there is no need for the data stored on the disk;
• by using programs AOMEI Partition Assistant.

To convert a disk from GPT to MBR, follow the same steps as in previous section article, with the only difference that this time we launch, accordingly, the reverse operation.

How to remove the "Make sure that the controller for this disk is enabled in the computer's bios menu" window during Windows installation

During Windows installation, "Make sure that the controller for this disk is enabled in the computer's bios menu"

Sometimes it happens that during Windows installation, at the stage when you need to select the hard disk partition on which Windows will be installed, the error “Make sure that the controller of this disk is included in the computer’s bios menu” appears. Naturally, the installation does not proceed further.

Error text

In this article you will learn what this means and how to fix the problem with the hard drive controller.

Why does this error appear?

There are several options for the message “Make sure that the controller of this disk is enabled in the computer’s bios menu.”

One of the most likely is that the hard drive operating mode is incorrectly set in the BIOS. There are two main modes - Achi and IDE, which we wrote about in the article.

Sometimes on new motherboards the UEFI/BIOS boot mode option contributes to the appearance of this error.

Less often, but another situation also occurs. This is damage to the boot record of the hard drive and in this case it will need to be restored.

How to fix “Make sure that the controller of this disk is enabled in the computer’s bios menu”?

There are as many options for eliminating this problem as there are reasons.

First you need the operating mode of the hard drive. If it is IDE (Compatible)(Native Mode), then enable AHCI, and if it is AHCI, then switch to IDE (Compatible)(Native Mode).

Switching the hard drive operating mode - option 1

Switching the hard drive operating mode - option 6

Switching the hard drive operating mode - option 5

Switching the hard drive operating mode - option 4

Switching the hard drive operating mode - option 3

Switching the hard drive operating mode - option 2

If this does not help, then you should check the UEFI/BIOS boot mode option. If there is one, then you should set it to “legacy” or “Legacy First”.

Switch boot mode to Legacy

After all changes in the BIOS, do not forget to save them with the F10 button.

The last option is to try checking and restoring the boot record of your hard drive.

To do this, press “shift” + “F10” when the error “Make sure that the controller of this disk is enabled in the computer’s bios menu” appears. This will launch the console.

Recovering the boot record via the console

• bootrec /fixmbr;
• bootrec/fixboot;
• bootrec /RebuildBcd.

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» » Error “Windows cannot be installed on this disk”

Error "Windows cannot be installed on this drive"

Sometimes when installing Windows 7, 8 or 10, you may encounter a problem that when you try to install the system on a hard drive, the system displays a warning: “Windows cannot be installed on this drive. Your computer's hardware may not support booting from this disk. Make sure the controller for this drive is enabled in the menu Computer BIOS".

The problem is usually typical for old computers and laptops, but occasionally appears on new hardware. This usually happens if the mode is enabled in the computer’s BIOS settings in the hard drive operating parameters. AHCI or any other other than IDE. So, let's go to BIOS computer and set the operating mode of our disk as IDE. Typically this setting is located in the section IntegratedPeripherals or Advanced, and she herself is usually called SATARAID/AHCIMode, SATAMode, SATAAHCIMode,ConfigureSATA or another name with a similar meaning.

I also came across this method of deactivating the mode:

1. Switching the operating mode using the settings AHCI Mode Control to mode Manual.
2. At the same time, the setting becomes available to us Native AHCI Mode, which we must switch to Disabled.

I have already mentioned SSD drives more than once in my articles, saying that they are faster than regular ones and can be used to upgrade your computer. And it would seem that installing them is a trivial thing, what could be simpler, remove the old hard drive, install a new SSD , install Windows on it and rejoice, but in reality everything is not so simple. The fact is that in order to squeeze maximum speed from an SSD drive (otherwise why use it), you need to switch to AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode in the BIOS. And this is where the surprises can begin...

So, I have an old computer that I decided to upgrade and install an SSD drive. I switched the AHCI mode in the BIOS. To do this, I went into the BIOS (press the Del or F2 button (there may be other keys depending on the motherboard model), when turning on the computer) in the "Main" menu and selected "Sata Configuration".

And in "Configure Sata as" I chose "AHCI"

I saved the settings, restarted the computer and started installing Windows. But that was not the case, an error occurred:

I started changing the BIOS settings, even updated its version , the result was the same - this error constantly appeared. In the end, I decided to select IDE mode in the BIOS and install Windows.
The installation was successful, then I decided to try switching back to AHCI mode in the BIOS, but a similar trick failed and Windows simply did not boot (in principle, I expected a similar result). Then I decided to do this - switch back to IDE mode, go into Windows and change the mode to ACHI in the registry editor.

Having returned to IDE mode, Windows booted successfully; now you need to make changes to the registry. To do this, open the registry editor - press the key combination "Win" + "R" and enter regedit.

In the registry editor, go to the path "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci", find the "Start" parameter, open it by double-clicking. In the "Value" field, enter "0".

That's it, the system can be rebooted and AHCI mode can be set in the BIOS. As a result, everything worked, the SSD disk worked in ACHI mode. Windows booted successfully and worked many times faster than with a regular hard disk.

So, if your old computer has stopped pleasing you with the speed of its operation, installing an SSD drive, in my opinion, is the ideal solution. But we must not forget about the minimum size of RAM - 2GB and a processor, preferably 2 cores of at least 2 GHz.

I hope this article helped you avoid the mistake:

Installing Windows on this disk is not possible. Your computer's hardware may not support booting from this disk. Make sure that the controller for this drive is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

And it helped to upgrade your computer and increase its performance and performance.