Windows 7 can't find Hard Disk

Question

I had Ubuntu 11 installed, and now I want to install Windows 7. I formatted one partition (with the help of Ubuntu's live CD) and I started installation of Windows. I formatted the partition again and Windows' setup started copying files. After that the computer rebooted, and on screen some text appears about voltages and the message Verifying DMI Pool Data ......... Update Success. The installation stops here.

I searched on Google for some solutions, but the one thing that I found is that Windows can't detect the hard disk.

I tried installing Ubuntu again and there was no problem, I'm very confused.

The first time I installed Ubuntu, it was the 64-bit version, but my system is 32-bit. Ubuntu started updating and the system crashed, I tried to install windows, but I can't (as above) so I reinstalled Ubuntu.

I also tried to delete the Ubuntu partition and installing Windows there instead, but that didn't work either.

Answer 1

A Ubuntu install likely uses one of the ext filesystems. Windows requires NTFS or FAT32 for an install.

You can use the Ubuntu LiveCD to format your hard drive with a filesystem that Windows can understand. Ehow has a description of this process, found here.

Answer 2

Ubuntu is better at installing over Windows than Windows is installing over Ubuntu. If you are happy to loose all your data then I would recommend doing a clean Windows install using the whole hard drive and then installing Ubuntu and let the installer create the new partition.