Problems Installing Windows 7. Seem to be the only one in the world :(

C

CLock3

Gawd
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
898
Alright, I got Windows 7 the other day, and I'm having some major installation problems that I can't figure out. The first sign of it not being right is how long it took. Most people around here said it took them 20 minutes or so to install. For me, it took 6 hours. After installation, it doesn't even work. It'll show the "Starting Windows" screen with the glowing windows logo, then I get a black screen for a few minutes, and finally I get a black screen with a cursor, but it never gets by that. Also, I used the same disc I'm using on a friends laptop, which installed as smoothly as possible. I've tried 3 different DVD drives on my computer, and it's the same deal on all of them. I tried removing anything extra I could, like my sound card, and disabling onboard LAN, etc., and that didn't help either. It's like each step in the installation process takes way longer than it should. For example, the first screen of the installation, where it pops up the window to pick your language, came up in a matter of seconds on my friends laptop, but on my PC it takes literally 15 minutes or so before it shows. And even when it shows, it's really laggy picking options and such. I've also reset the BIOS to factory settings to see if that would help, and it didn't. Anyone know what would be causing this? I researched around the internet, and I can't find a single example of anyone else having this problem, or any install problems really. The specs of the computer are in my sig. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a ton in advance. :)
 
Tried a couple more things. First thing I tried was just burning another DVD to see if it'd give me any luck, but it didn't. The second thing I tried was installing Vista x64, which I would then try the upgrade route from. Well, the Vista install took about 40 minutes, and the OS is running completely terrible. By terrible I mean that it's so slow that the cursor moves across the screen in jumps. The CPU is constantly being used even though it doesn't show anything using it, and it's just the desktop, no programs running. This is just how the Windows 7 install was acting. The odd thing is that I tried Vista on this computer before and it worked just fine. What could be the problem here? I'm so confused. :confused: I'm going to download the x86 version and see what happens. Is there any reason why my computer would have a problem with 64 bit? I just don't understand what would be causing all of this to happen. :(
 
I actually had the same problem with the Windows 7 beta x64. I installed it and it sat there for an hour at the black screen with the build info at the bottom while I could move the cursor, finally I just gave up. I have no idea what caused it, but Vista x64 works fine. Ironically, I had the same problem with Vista x64 when I first installed it, but when I removed an old 400GB WD HDD then the problem went away, I was baffled but assumed the HDD was bad and the Windows 7 beta had a bug in it, now I'm wondering if it's something else...
 
Seems to me that you have a hardware, not software, problem.

I'd approach it from that perspective and start testing RAM, HDD(s), CPU, etc. till you either isolate the bad component or determine that all is good.
If you decide that hardware is not at fault, try installing a plain vanilla XP 32 bit and see what happens.
 
Took a while for me too. Ijust let it sit there and it eventually did its thing.
 
I was having trouble at first, and it turned out to be a bad optical drive...at least it installed when I changed it. Oddly enough, I put that drive in and have burned several disks and ripped a few with it in W7 x64.
 
I'm done trying, I installed it 3 times and tried everything I could think of (XP compatibility, Vista compatibility, etc.) but my 4850 drivers and CCC just will not install, bummer, I liked it too, some programs that I could never get to work in Vista were working, and working faster than they do in XP...

any thoughts on these as problems...?

1. my Gigabyte GA P35 S3G SMBus controller driver wasn't working...
2. would not having the stock bios on my 4850 cause problems during this install...?
3. I'm trying to dual boot XP and Win7, is that causing the problems...?
 
I triple boot the 3 OS'es, V x64/win 7 on one hd, and XP on the other.

-for win7, windows update has a drive for the ATI cards that is slightly newer than the 8.12's, but no CCC, I used the built in utility of win7 for gamma

-Device Manager in win7 has the caution symbols next to the Sata controller entries, and calls them "interupt controllers" or similar. I tried the mobo drivers and no change. But I did a couple of benches between V x64/win7 and they seem to be working properly, so I'm not too concerned with it in beta
 
Hm, thanks for all the input everyone. I'll try out the things mentioned and see if I can get it working.
 
Alright, so I figured something out, but I'm still really confused. Turns out it's something to do with 64 bit. I downloaded the x86 ISO and installed it, and it's running smooth as silk (on it right now :)). The install only took about 20 minutes. While I'm happy to have it working, it still leaves me wondering why I would have a problem with a 64 bit OS. Is the CPU the only thing that relates to it, or can other hardware affect it as well? Thanks again for your help everyone.
 
If you try and load 64bit again, disconnect all other hard drives, power and data, leaving just the drive for the OS and see if that helps.
 
Make sure you provide feedback/bug reports to microsoft about the issues you experience. It's the only way it will get fixed.
 
wow, now I've got it working as well, I doubt if it the bios flash was what "fixed" the issue, but I did some things different this time (my 4th install)...

1. in XP I flashed my 4850 back to the original Sapphire bios...
2. formatted the drive...
3. installed W7, checked Device Manager and the 4850 still was not working...
4. didn't install the optional ATI update...
5. went to my setup folder on one of my backup drives and loaded the chipset drivers in Vista compatibility mode as admin (SM Bus driver problem solved)...
6. rebooted, went to Device Manager and lo and behold the 4850 was working...

I am one happy camper, I really liked W7 from what I had been able to do thusfar and now I get to play with it some more...

:D
 
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