Windows 7: Setup was unable to create a new system partition

Posted on by Jan

Gosh, Windows 7 was giving me a really hard time when I tried to install it on a OCZ RevoDrive 3 PCI-Express SSD drive. Every installation attempt was greeted with this error message:

“Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition”

Strangely, the drive was working perfectly as a non-boot drive under an existing Windows 7 installation and also visible as a SCSI drive in the BIOS drive list. Here are the steps which finally worked for me:

  1. Extract the RevoDrive 3 drivers on a FAT32-formatted USB flash drive
  2. Disconnect any disk drives (except the DVD drive) by unplugging the SATA cables
  3. Disconnect any USB devices (except for keyboard and mouse obviously)
  4. Boot Windows using the Windows 7 installation DVD
  5. When prompted for the target installation drive, choose “Load driver” (your list of available drives should be empty)
  6. Plug in the USB flash drive containing the drivers (don’t plug it in earlier!)
  7. Let Windows 7 load the driver from the flash drive
  8. Unplug the USB flash drive
  9. Choose the RevoDrive 3 as the installation drive and continue the Windows 7 installation
  10. Once Windows 7 is installed, reconnect all your SATA and USB devices

This PCIe SSD is ridiculously fast! Being a Mac person this drive even makes me like Windows a tiny bit more ;-) Unfortunately, there are no drivers available for OS X Lion and according to OCZ there never will be. This super fast SSD would be such a wonderful addition to any Mac Pro or Hackintosh setup.

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3 thoughts on “Windows 7: Setup was unable to create a new system partition”

  1. Tor Olav Steinsrud

    Thanks so much!!! after 3 houers of failing i got it detected :D
    Hopefully the w7 install will go smooth now :)

  2. Dmitri Ivanov

    Thank you, I know it’s been quite a few months since your solution but after 4 hours of trying to figure this out myself I would have never blamed the USB drive as the culprit.

    So once again thank you! I only wish every other person who has this problem gets to see this.

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