Installing windows, but no drives are detected

So, I was installing windows on a Computer without any OS, and it goes to the blue installation screen. But then It says:
press Up and down to scroll
press enter to create new partition
press D to make a new partition

so i press down, and nothing happens I press up, and it goes to the critical error screen and restarts. I go through the proccess again and press enter, and blue screen appears again.

I'm planning to take it to the store to have it repartitioned, but if thats not the problem, please tell me.

Does your BIOS even detect a hard drive? Can you hear it spin up, etc?

It's possibly sector damage.. if you have any bootable utilities I'd try those.. hdd manufactures offer specific programs for their drives for free, I'd look into those.

as said above, check the drive is detected by the bios, then check that you have loaded any drivers if needed (IE Sata, SCSI) then if it still fails check your drive with the manufactures software IE Maxblast for a maxtor drive.

And if all else fails, put the drive in another machine to check if it is working correctly.

the bios detects it as a 160gb sata device, so it knows that there is a drive there

OK, check your motherboard manual, see if there is a section on installing windows, you may need drivers for your SATA controller.