Nightmare windows install.

El_Commi

El_Commi

El_Commi

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Joined
25 Apr 2011
Posts
411
Location
Belfast, N.Ireland
Don't talk to me about updating with Windows 7.
My new computer is working fine. As per this thread (pics inc soon): http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=19067824#post19067824

Decided to give my old to the girlfriend- which meant, fresh install of windows so it was like a new computer.

First off it wouldn't set up on my HDD, just told me to check the log. Deleting partitions, and reformatting etc. still refused to run the setup.

20 mins later, discovered I need to disconenct any additional harddrives.so I do that, and it starts the setup fine. Easy.

Then after several attempts and a few hours, of it just freezing on "completing installation". I read that sometimes it sticks, so all you need to do was Ctrl +f10 and run explorer.exe.
Did that, explorer booted. Awesome.

Restart.

It went to loading screen, stuck. Then gave me the "Set-up was unable to complete your windows installation. Reinstall windows to procede".
Started the process again. And it stuck once more. Then after some more reading was told that USB devices (including keyboards/mice) can bug the installer, as well as using over 4 GB ram.
So after a little searching, for old ps2 mouse/keyboard. Removed the USB, and started with those. and also removed the RAM down to 2GB to spare future heartache- or so I thought.

Install went fine, got it set up.
However, after it restarted. I go through Bios screen, Post, and windows loading screen. Then monitor cuts out, so I have to switch from the discrete card to onboard. But now, it thinks my onboard is a second monitor. (Took me about 3 restarts to figure this out as there was no mouse cursor on screen :p)
So I stick to leaving my onboard plugged in, reboot, and wait for windows to start. (But this means, no POST/Bios etc)

All's great. Disabled onboard in windows. (Bios is already using pci-e). Reboot. And windows again refuses to use the GPU card. :< Safe mode, to fix this and reenable the onboard.

So I figured, for the time being- I'll just get things installed and work out how to fix that later.
Put in the 2GB RAM, so I'm back at 4GB as well as the other HDD. And the mobo beeps signalling mem error- (Using DDR2 Corsair XMS 1GB 800 mhz sticks. CAS latency is slighty different on each.). So off it goes, switch the 2 sticks of RAM around. No beeping. But no POST screen either. Remember, I only removed these two sticks, from Slot 1 and 4. The other 2 are fine.

Removed it all barr HDD. It boots to windows fine.
Put a stick of RAM in slot 1. leaving 4 blank. It works fine.
Take out slot 1, put it to 4. It works fine.
Same, use the other stick. It works fine in both 1 and 4. (So neither the slots, nor the RAM are broken)

So I then go back to 4 sticks of RAM. Back to no POST screen. I downgrade to 3GB, and then boot windows to install motherboard drivers. Bam- windows won't use onboard LAN due to not detecting it. (Driver disk it about 60miles away at my house :p)

By this stage it was 1am, so I went to bed.

Now for the usual questions.
The windows disk is fine. As I used it to install windows on my brand new system w/o any issues first time.
The old computer CAN run win7, and the PSU does have the volts for it. It has been running that set up for over a year.
I literally booted to windows, and uninstalled some things, before thinking that a format from setup would be faster and better. So the issue above was from fully working in windows to all those issues in about 3-5 hours.

I'm currently poking out old mobo driver disk, so I can send my girlfriend home with it tomorrow. Which may or may not be possible.

Specs are
Amd Anthalon 6400 x64
4GB DDR2 800 Mhz Corsair xms ram.
Ati Radeon Hd 4350
450w PSU (Can't remember brand)
Abit something or other, mini board.

Sorry I can't remember psu, or motherboard specs more.

My plan is to find the mobo disks, install the drivers. Then update the mobo bios and see if I can get the thing to work properly next weekend when I stay over at hers.
I'm not sure what else to try.

Any suggestions? :p
As I said,t he main thing that bugs me, is that everything worked 100% before I decided to reinstall windows. Then it turned to hell. lol
 
You really started a full format reinstall without having motherboard drivers available on USB?
Best to at least have a LAN driver to hand or a seocn dmachine right beside it plugged into the net.

Sounds like a nightmare, but installing with only one hard drive connected is always the best way to ensure the MBR is always on the OS disk. Else its a complete mess later. All USB devices should be disconnected also, but if your Mobo BIOS is up to date there should really be no need to remove USb keyboards and mice, esp with win7. Old BIOS can lead to problems.

The video issue is most certainly your own fault, having two cards and not plugging into the primary as enabled in the BIOS is an oversight. May have taken you many reboots to figure it out, but its still a BIOS setting (on or off) if set to off then windows will never see the onboard card and thus not provide any GFX conflicts.

Your memory issue sounds like a BIOS setting also, way before windows, and nothing to do with windows.
 
The hard drive issue is totally my fault. Experienced it months back when I last reinstalled. I wasn't expecting any issues with the motherboard, as the last time I installed windows on that machine. I never had those issues at all, so figured I could install the drivers once I got online :p

THe video issue is a sticky point, as on my bios it has always been set to use the Pci-E. Even now it's still set to use it. Far as I can tell,t here is NO option to disable onboard. But rather to choose which one the motherboard should prefer.

I think its like; "Init video adapter- PCI
Onboard
Pci-E"

And it's set to PCI-E :p
Also don't understand how the memory could be a Bios issue. As the ONLY thing I changed in the Bios was boot order of Drives. IE From Sata HDD, to IDE Optical :p

*edit*
I'm nopt suggested the memory is to do with windows. Far from it, as windows doesn't boot at this stage. Just frustrating really. I didn't tinker much beyond that, as it was late so bed time :p
 
Well. Finally got back to my girlfriends house. It's been a very long week.

First thing I did was to, insert the last stick of ram.
Then moved the cmos jumper, and powered the system on. After doing that- moved the jumper back to the right position. Booted up.
It POST'd fine.
Then NTLDR is missing.

So, had to go to bios, change the Boot order, then change the order of the HDD's.
Making sure the SATA drive is registered as master.

Bam- worked fine.
The real funny thing is, that now my gpu card works fine. I mean- I didn't turn off the onboard, or set boot preference to PCI-e after the cmos reset. But it works fine. The LAN card too!
So will leave it at that. Just running updates and the like now. Thought I quite wish, I had taken the time to think properly last week :p
 
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