Error When Formatting: Required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing

Ghostdreamer

Hello, 

 

I have an acer aspire 5742. It is crashed, (BSOD), and though I can probably fix it it's about time I got it reformatted anyway. It came with windows 7, and I'm trying to put a fresh and clean install on the laptop. I've done it 100 times before on a bunch of difference computers and laptops, and this is the first time I have recieved this particular error. 

 

After a significant amount of googling and troubleshooting, it seems a lot of people are confused as the cause and solution to the problem. I have switched from ACHI to IDE on the motherboard, but that didn't solve the problem. The most widely accepted solution seems to be to get the RAID drivers for the motherboard. However, those drivers aren't provided by acer, and I cannot find them anywhere else. Looking at posts from acer about this particular subject, they all give vague answers such as:

 

This is where you can find available drivers, if you can't find your driver here, we don't support it

If you are trying to install an OS that didn't come with your laptop, we can't help you

 

ect. ect. However, the laptop came with windows 7, and I'm trying to put windows 7 on it (so the OS is the same). Has anyone had any success in figuring out how to get past this error when trying to reformat? I know I can go to the recovery disk and whatnot, however I really want a clean instal, which the recovery disk and factory default does not provide. 

 

I have tried using a windows retail installation disk, as well as 3 iso's via bootable flash drive and dvd-r. All provide the same error, with the same effect: I can't reformat my laptop. 

 

Any help or ideas would be GREATLY appreciated, thank you very much for your time!

Vince53

Ghostdreamer, I'm nowhere near the expert you are, but I have an idea. You already know that drivers are more difficult with laptops than desktops. Your laptop comes with a recovery folder that should solve your driver problems, but you're trying a clean install with a DVD. The DVD doesn't' have the drivers you need, but your recovery folder does.

 

 Now, why won't Acer give you the drivers? Because they don' have them--they were installed on your original OS, but they are not designed for people to apply to a lot of other laptops, so Acer doesn't have them available.

 

Microsoft doesn't want problems, so they make problem installations difficult or impossible. MS won't put those drivers on a regular Win 7 DVD. If you restore from the recovery folder, it will clean up a lot of stuff anyway. I would take that route.