Windows 8 asking for hard Disk drive in install

It doesnt recognise your usb flash drive, consider putting the install files on a dvd and run a dvd drive. Can you see the flash drive in the BIOS or on the boot menu when you start the install? You can also do a direct download and upgrade from the windows site

It's does recognize the flash drive, it doesnt recognize the HDD.  It's gets tot he point where I have to choose a drive to install on and says that it cant find a drive.

Is it asking for a [hard] disk driver, or is it asking for a CD/DVD driver?  And by "ask", do you mean it actually pops up and asks, or does it simply not find any hard drives to install to?

HDD, I'm installed from the USB key so dont need a DC/DVD.

It says it can't find drives and gives me the option to load driver.

Which Toshiba laptop model is it?  The driver you need is not a "hard drive" driver ... it is a controller driver.  It may be listed in their downloads as SATA or AHCI, or it may be one of the chipset drivers.

hi,

it's a SATELLITE U940 SERIES

I know this is no longer relevant to your issue, but the reason I asked about the actual message, is because if it pops up during the install asking for a CD/DVD driver (even when done from USB), that means you have bad media, not actually that you need a driver.

You need driver for SATA controller. Can you show model of laptop? Normally drivers should be anywhere on HDD.

Not sure which "U940" you have, but the one I looked at has an Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver, which is the software for the chipset's interface with the drives.  Do you have more than one drive?  RAID?

May be you need this one:
http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/download_driver_details.jsp?service=EU&selCategory=2&selFamily=2&selSeries=198&selProduct=7672&selShortMod=null&language=13&selOS=40&selType=262&yearupload=&monthupload=&dayupload=&useDate=null&mode=allMachines&search=&action=search&macId=&country=40&selectedLanguage=13&type=262&page=1&FROM=windows8&ID=84774&OSID=40&driverLanguage=42

Tried that, doesnt work.

It is self-extracting archive. There are 4 files for 64 and for 32 bit versions:
iaStorA.sys
iaStorAC.cat
iaStorAC.inf
iaStorF.sys

It's possible the Win8 installer doesn't recognise the format of one or more partitions on the hard drive.  Are you starting from scratch with the laptop and don't need the recovery partiton with Win8 Home?  If so grab a generic boot CD and use FDisk to remove all the partitioning to start with a completely fresh drive with NTFS partitions of your choice.

Recreate your Windows 8 USB installation disk. It is probably not completed and drivers are missing on pendrive. I had similar issue with Hyper-V Server 2008R2 some day and the reason was broken ISO burned on a DVD. I assume you have similar case when not all data was transferred from ISO to your USB drive.

Make sure if you have enough free space on USB drive. If so, format it and use USB-Universal-Installer to make USB installation media
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

Select drive letter for your pendrive there and choose from ISO list Windows 7 (the same installation process). Boot your computer from that newly prepared pendrive. Should work fine

If not, download Windows 8 ISO once again, maybe it is incomplete. Compare downloaded size with ISO file on a web site

Regards,
Krzysztof

@ als
I extracted those and still not dice.
There are chipset drivers I can test I guess.

Have you tried Recovery Media Creator from preinstalled windows? It should save all nesessary drivers to recovery disk

Just a timid remark...

If you have Windows 8 installed there should be an "Add Features to Windows 8" in the control panel. Using that you should be able to upgrade to pro easily, without having to go through the complete installation.

Use the copy of pro you have for something else, or sell it...

It'#s a business laptop and we have a corporate license, so selling/using somewhere is no good to us.

A new laptop with pre-installed Windows 8 likely has a UEFI BIOS with Secure Boot enabled.    If this is the case, you won't be able to install a "new" OS without first disabling Secure Boot.

As noted above, it's FAR easier to simply use the built-in upgrade feature from within the OS (as rindi suggested above), which will upgrade in place without altering the Secure Boot setup.

If that's not an option, then you need to disable Secure Boot;  then boot to your install media, wipe the disk, and install Pro from scratch.

I have disabled secure boot already, no change.

When I chose the upgrade option it asks for a key, my key doesnt see to be valid.

Will the laptop still boot to the pre-installed Windows 8 with Secure Boot disabled?

... if so, are you trying to upgrade from within Windows?  [i.e. from the "Add features to Windows 8"  dialog]    ... or from your installation media?

I'm actually a bit surprised it still boots with Secure Boot disabled => I thought the OS would balk at that once it was configured.

Secure boot is defo disabled and the laptop boots fine into the original OS.

Upgrade works fine from media but will creat a windows.old file which will take up space. not a massive issue as it's a 700gb HDD and it's probably what I'll end up doing tbh.

Your Key is for the corporate version and so won't be recognised for an upgrade.
Win 8 OEM Home only supports Anytime Upgrade Keys.

I don't think secure boot needs to be disabled if you use a retail windows 8 DVD to boot from. Secure boot just refuses to boot to OS's that aren't officially secure-boot certified (at least that's how I understand the feature). Also as far as I know Windows 8 should still boot normally without secure boot. It just isn't protected by that feature then, and secure boot must be enabled by the OEM who built the PC by default. That's an m$ requirement of their OEM's who sell PC's with pre-installed windows 8 and have the Windows 8 sticker inside on the PC.

May be you are trying to install Windows from USB 3.0 port? Your laptop should have one USB 2.0 port. Try to place USB key to 2.0 slot

Why would a USB3 port make a difference?

I managed to get the SATA driver from the site and use it on install. The install recognizes the  driver but still says not disk has been found!
installerror.JPG

USB 3.0 controller need separate driver. Try to boot from USB 2, it take not many time.

Using the boot from USB 3 or 2 is the same, the issue is the SATA driver.

Thanks.

This was the only solution that worked.