Old build, moved countries and now can't install Windows?! Help please!

rOAdeh

rOAdeh

rOAdeh

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Joined
3 Dec 2002
Posts
618
Location
Sydney, Australia
Hi guys,

I moved across to Australia last month and brought most of my PC with me. This system has been running stable @ 4GHz for over a year back in the UK. The only things I've changed are the case/PSU/keyboard/monitor due to size/weight issues.

My spec is:
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R mobo,
an i7-920 CPU,
6 GB RAM (I think Crucial but not 100% sure)
Radeon 5870
Asus STX PCI-E
Intel X25M 80GB
various HDDs
all running W7

The build went fine and the PC booted no problems. I originally left the BIOS at 4GHz and waited for it to boot into Windows, which failed as it couldn't find the partition. I figured this might be due to the fact that I'd changed the SATA ports around and so ran the built in W7 startup recovery tool. This didn't fix the issue, so given I had everything separated onto different partitions, I just formatted. I was using a USB stick image of W7 and when Windows was expanding the files I got an error saying 'that not all the required installable files were available' (error 0x80070216). Figuring this was an issue with my USB image (which I hadn't used before), I stuck in the DVD only to get exactly the same issue.

I then went back to the BIOS and stuck it into failsafe (which seemed to slow the loading times of W7 install massively!) and got the same problem. A quick google led me to find it was sometimes an issue with the RAM, so I quickly reseated everything and tried again, only to get the same result. I figured it might be an issue with the SSD, and given I needed a new HDD anyway, I went out and bought a new WD Ecogreen 2TB drive. I unplugged all my other HDDs and tried to install it on the brand new drive (to rule out any damage caused to my disks during transit). Again however, I got exactly the same issue.

I then downloaded the 'trial W7' from MS website to ensure that it wasn't a problem with my source media, and again got the same issue. So right now, I'm a bit confused.. this is a system that ran perfectly for ages back in the UK. It is quite possible that something may have been damaged during transit to Oz, but everything still boots normally. It can't be an issue with the hard disks, so my current conclusion is that it may be a RAM issue still. I'm planning to run Memtest86 when I get home tonight, but was wondering if anyone had experienced a similar issue or has any other ideas as to ways I can isolate the problem? I don't really have much access to spare parts out here so software diagnosis is preferred!

Thanks,

Ben
 
Oh and I also tried installing XP again, to see if it was a source disk problem, but got a BSOD on pci.sys before it had begun to install (the graphics card and soundcard are both installed in their same slots, so its not a hardware conflict..)
 
Only thing I can suggest is unplug everything but leave the bare minimal you need to boot, reset the BIOS and try again.
 
I remember going through a similar process of installing windows with all sorts of crazy random errors.

It turned out to be faulty RAM. It can cause crazy problems when attempting to install Windows.

You pretty much tried every trick in the book. Not much else I can think of for you to try. Memtest it and see what it says. Be sure to use latest version.
 
OK I've been having all sorts of fun trying to get Memtest to run (my PC seems to now refuse to boot off USB, so I've had to dig out an old DVD drive). I've only left it going for a few hours but so far its had no errors, which given Windows install seems to always fail so quickly makes me think that maybe its not a RAM problem..

Any other ideas as to what it might be guys?

Cheers,
 
saw it suggested, but not any confirmation it had been done, but has the cmos been reset as per the mobo manufacturers guidelines ?
 
Yes, I tried the CMOS reset, which didn't change anything.

Just managed to successfully install Ubuntu, so I'm now guessing it might be back to a source media problem (given the recent issues I've had with USB booting).. so hopefully it is something as simple as that..
 
rOAdeh said:
Just managed to successfully install Ubuntu, so I'm now guessing it might be back to a source media problem (given the recent issues I've had with USB booting).. so hopefully it is something as simple as that..
Click to expand...

how did you install that over the other install's , as you've tried usb and dvd havent you ?
 
I tried W7 on USB and DVD, both had the same problem. Despite me trying a USB version of the Windows trial from the MS website (hence me thinking there's an issue with my USB booting)

I then tried XP and got the pci.sys error (which I thought must be computer related but turns out to be a lack of native support for PCI-Express Graphics unless you slipstream with SP2)

I tried Ubuntu off a USB stick, which refused to boot with any kind of kb/mouse support despite enabling it in my bios.

I then ran Memtest off a CD and it reported no errors

Then I burnt a copy of Ubuntu to CD and it installed fine, so I'm going to try and source a new Windows copy sometime..
 
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