Windows 7 Clean Install Fails

My Windows XP boot drive is in a removable housing so I decided to replace it with another drive and install a full (not upgrade) 64-bit version of Windows 7 Pro on the new drive to evaluate how it would work on this computer. The SATA controllers on my motherboard have all failed. I even had one drive damaged as a result. I'm using 2 cards with different controllers, JMicro on a 2 port card and Silicon Image on a 4 port card. I had some initial problems with drivers for the cards, but was able to obtain 64-bit drivers that Win 7 approved and was able to have all drives recognized. I chose the "plug-in" drive for the installation.

Everything went file until the process got to "Completing Installation" and the computer was hung. No keyboard or mouse activity worked. They are both wired, not USB, if that matters.

I reset the computer and tried to boot into Windows 7, but it complained that the setup had failed and to try it again. I tried restarting the install 3 times and each time the "old" Windows was saved to a Windows.old file, with incremented extensions. Each "old" folder is around 36 GB. I found this information by attaching the drive via USB so I could investigate what was on it. If any kind of log of the install can help discover the cause, I can get it off of the drive.

I also tried a 32-bit installation, but it failed in exactly the same way.

 

I'm not much more than a beginner but have been down this road a few times with installation of OS from time to time.

If this were me I would use gparted to completely format the intended drive for install and then do a custom install of win7 and again format with that. ( This seems to keep windows installations happy though it does chew up some of your time.)

Again, this is just me so I'm here to support where I was supported in the past with such annoying problems.

I'll watch out here for your attempt reports.

 

One of the problems I have is that Gparted and Segate's Sea Tools and Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test do not recognize all the drives on the plug-in controllers. For example, Sea tools recognizes the Seagate and Hitachi drives on the SiL based controller only and Drive Fitness recognizes the Maxtor drive on the JMicron based controller while gparted doesn't recognize any drives.

A contact with Seagate told me that they want to work with controllers on the motherboard. I have been playing with replacing the motherboard, but the cost of new components with a newer motherboard causes me to hesitate that route.

Before I quit, I'll try gparted again to make sure. and I may risk connecting a boot drive to a motherboard controller.

I'll report the results.

 

I, as well, am not a computer geek... so take my info lightly and don't yell if I just wasted your time.

I had a similar issue right after building my computer. If your computer worked fine prior to the clean install, disregard this message.

I was installing Vista 32-bit

The install would get all the way to a point where it was checking the system and such, after the full install was done. I tried re-installing as you have done only to be stuck with 3 different windows.old folders eating up space...

The solution was a dummy error on my part. My motherboard, as with many, require RAM sticks to be inserted in a specific order... I had a stick placed in the wrong slot... that was causing my problem. After moving the RAM stick and running another install of Vista, everything ran perfect. It was a hardware error and not a software error.

Also, make sure your new hard drive is not set to slave... not sure if it would cause the error, but it's always good to check.

 

i installed windows 7 from XP, after several failed attempts to boot from windows 7 disc, i let XP boot up, then opened up my computer, clicked on C: drive and started the installation that way, after wards i deleted the 'windows old' folder, result a clean install

 

I don't understand "opened up my computer, clicked on C: drive." When I installed 7 on another computer with XP on it, all of the XP stuff was lost. What am I missing?

 

My memory is installed corectly and my drives are SATA -- no masters!

 

sorry my mistake i was thinking you wanted to install 7 over XP