Windows 7 Install saga
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So... today's task: Successfully install Windows 7 on my old folks' PC. First try... The install takes an hour to begin, another to get to the first restart... freeze. Darn. Second try... same. Darn 2. Get new disc, retry install. The install takes an hour to begin, hour and a half to first restart... freeze. Darn 3. About 3-4 "darns" later... It took me removing one of the hard drives (it had two), one of the graphic cards (it had two) and half of the RAM (two bars out of four) and clearing the BIOS in order to get a Windows 7 installation to finish. Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count. :)
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
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So... today's task: Successfully install Windows 7 on my old folks' PC. First try... The install takes an hour to begin, another to get to the first restart... freeze. Darn. Second try... same. Darn 2. Get new disc, retry install. The install takes an hour to begin, hour and a half to first restart... freeze. Darn 3. About 3-4 "darns" later... It took me removing one of the hard drives (it had two), one of the graphic cards (it had two) and half of the RAM (two bars out of four) and clearing the BIOS in order to get a Windows 7 installation to finish. Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count. :)
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
rastaVnuce wrote:
Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count.
Maybe you should try blaming what was really responsible for your problems: the crap hardware on your old folk's PC.
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rastaVnuce wrote:
Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count.
Maybe you should try blaming what was really responsible for your problems: the crap hardware on your old folk's PC.
Agreed. I'm not sure what was up with the HDs/video cards, but the ram problem smells like a bad DIMM; which should be checked with memtest86. As far as the hard drives go, because windows installers only ask which HD to use if it's not 'obvious' to the installer it's generally best to disconnect everything except the OS drive if possible. One of the issues is that if you have 2 HD's with NTFS (or FAT32??) one of which has a windows install and the other does not, then you 'obviously' want to install on the second HD and you're not prompted to confirm/change the selection. IMO excepting the case where the 2nd drive is empty (new HD and new OS install at the same time) this assumption is wrong more often than not. You're much safer installing with one drive attached and then connecting the others and changing drive letters (to give the optical drives letters after all the HDs) before installing any software.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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So... today's task: Successfully install Windows 7 on my old folks' PC. First try... The install takes an hour to begin, another to get to the first restart... freeze. Darn. Second try... same. Darn 2. Get new disc, retry install. The install takes an hour to begin, hour and a half to first restart... freeze. Darn 3. About 3-4 "darns" later... It took me removing one of the hard drives (it had two), one of the graphic cards (it had two) and half of the RAM (two bars out of four) and clearing the BIOS in order to get a Windows 7 installation to finish. Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count. :)
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
I had an issue along these lines, do they have a lousy power supply? Took me the longest time to figure out what the problem actually was, and I only managed because the thing got so bad that it wouldn't even clear post anymore. But when it started it behaved a lot like that, killing Windows 7 install at least once in the process.
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rastaVnuce wrote:
Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count.
Maybe you should try blaming what was really responsible for your problems: the crap hardware on your old folk's PC.
How on earth did you figure out that the hardware's crap? Weven being unable to handle something puts the hardware in that category? I've installed a whole bunch of Linux and BSD distros on it, Windows XP and Vista and even tried out Hackintosh for the kicks of it... All worked just fine. Crappy hardware or crappy Windows? You make the call...
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
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Agreed. I'm not sure what was up with the HDs/video cards, but the ram problem smells like a bad DIMM; which should be checked with memtest86. As far as the hard drives go, because windows installers only ask which HD to use if it's not 'obvious' to the installer it's generally best to disconnect everything except the OS drive if possible. One of the issues is that if you have 2 HD's with NTFS (or FAT32??) one of which has a windows install and the other does not, then you 'obviously' want to install on the second HD and you're not prompted to confirm/change the selection. IMO excepting the case where the 2nd drive is empty (new HD and new OS install at the same time) this assumption is wrong more often than not. You're much safer installing with one drive attached and then connecting the others and changing drive letters (to give the optical drives letters after all the HDs) before installing any software.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
Dan Neely wrote:
but the ram problem smells like a bad DIMM; which should be checked with memtest86
Thought of it myself. Checked it. No issues.
Dan Neely wrote:
As far as the hard drives go, because windows installers only ask which HD to use if it's not 'obvious' to the installer it's generally best to disconnect everything except the OS drive if possible.
So, in order to reinstall Windows, you have to open the case, disconnect all but one hard drives? Come on, you can't say that's acceptable. Even worse... When I tried to install with both HDDs, if I select the second drive as target, Weven still created its 100MB system partition on the first one. That's just plain annoying.
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
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How on earth did you figure out that the hardware's crap? Weven being unable to handle something puts the hardware in that category? I've installed a whole bunch of Linux and BSD distros on it, Windows XP and Vista and even tried out Hackintosh for the kicks of it... All worked just fine. Crappy hardware or crappy Windows? You make the call...
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
My hardware was blamed by CP as well - XP x64 installed flawlessly (as did all flavours of Linux that I tried), only Vista (no longer on the hdd) and Weven* had trouble. memtest86 reports no problems. Only 1 harddisk and 1 GPU. PSU is powerful and expensive and is able to give a lot more power than the PC needs. All parts are of a respectable brand. I blame Vista and Weven. * Still fails to properly detect the size and refresh rate of my Plug'n'Play enabled screen. There is no excuse for that, especially since XP had no trouble with it, without installing any drivers or such. edit: oh and the installation problem was that after loading, it would just sit there for 10 minutes before showing the installation wizard. That's without exaggeration, it was actually 10 minutes.
modified on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 7:30 PM
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rastaVnuce wrote:
Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count.
Maybe you should try blaming what was really responsible for your problems: the crap hardware on your old folk's PC.
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rastaVnuce wrote:
Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count.
Maybe you should try blaming what was really responsible for your problems: the crap hardware on your old folk's PC.
Rob Graham wrote:
the crap hardware
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there. If Win7 doesn't like some parts of it, the installer should say so, rather than silently fail. This is crappy software behavior, for which there is no excuse whatsoever. :|
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
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Dan Neely wrote:
but the ram problem smells like a bad DIMM; which should be checked with memtest86
Thought of it myself. Checked it. No issues.
Dan Neely wrote:
As far as the hard drives go, because windows installers only ask which HD to use if it's not 'obvious' to the installer it's generally best to disconnect everything except the OS drive if possible.
So, in order to reinstall Windows, you have to open the case, disconnect all but one hard drives? Come on, you can't say that's acceptable. Even worse... When I tried to install with both HDDs, if I select the second drive as target, Weven still created its 100MB system partition on the first one. That's just plain annoying.
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
rastaVnuce wrote:
So, in order to reinstall Windows, you have to open the case, disconnect all but one hard drives?
No, but it's for you own good. One wrong move... and there you go, another hour or so of work recovering deleted partition. I learned it hard way!
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Rob Graham wrote:
the crap hardware
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there. If Win7 doesn't like some parts of it, the installer should say so, rather than silently fail. This is crappy software behavior, for which there is no excuse whatsoever. :|
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, and improve readability.
Luc Pattyn wrote:
If Win7 doesn't like some parts of it, the installer should say so, rather than silently fail.
Oh, what planet are you comming from, mate?
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Dan Neely wrote:
but the ram problem smells like a bad DIMM; which should be checked with memtest86
Thought of it myself. Checked it. No issues.
Dan Neely wrote:
As far as the hard drives go, because windows installers only ask which HD to use if it's not 'obvious' to the installer it's generally best to disconnect everything except the OS drive if possible.
So, in order to reinstall Windows, you have to open the case, disconnect all but one hard drives? Come on, you can't say that's acceptable. Even worse... When I tried to install with both HDDs, if I select the second drive as target, Weven still created its 100MB system partition on the first one. That's just plain annoying.
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
I have installed W7 on systems with multiple hard drives with no issue at all. (they were,of course all healthy , relatively new drives...).
rastaVnuce wrote:
Thought of it myself. Checked it. No issues.
But yet you had to remove it to install? I'd find a new way to check my memory, yours obviously didn't work.
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Rob Graham wrote:
the crap hardware
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there. If Win7 doesn't like some parts of it, the installer should say so, rather than silently fail. This is crappy software behavior, for which there is no excuse whatsoever. :|
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, and improve readability.
Luc Pattyn wrote:
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there.
If you have to remove the harware to install a newer OS, the hardware is clearly suspect. It's quite possible that the hardware went bad long after the old OS was installed, and could well have had hidden problems that were not obvious until Weven tried to write to bad parts of the disk or use faulty memory. If the Installer ran exhaustive tests of all the hardware before it tried to install, everyone would whine about how long it took.
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there.
If you have to remove the harware to install a newer OS, the hardware is clearly suspect. It's quite possible that the hardware went bad long after the old OS was installed, and could well have had hidden problems that were not obvious until Weven tried to write to bad parts of the disk or use faulty memory. If the Installer ran exhaustive tests of all the hardware before it tried to install, everyone would whine about how long it took.
But whining is much more interesting.
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there.
If you have to remove the harware to install a newer OS, the hardware is clearly suspect. It's quite possible that the hardware went bad long after the old OS was installed, and could well have had hidden problems that were not obvious until Weven tried to write to bad parts of the disk or use faulty memory. If the Installer ran exhaustive tests of all the hardware before it tried to install, everyone would whine about how long it took.
If Win7 does not like some hardware part, it should say so; maybe a driver is not available, an essential function is not provided, whatever. Some incompatibility could be justified, but just failing to install without notice is not acceptable. As long as Microsoft does not understand this, they will not provide the customer satisfaction they claim they want to offer, and they'll keep wondering what it is other companies do to get loyal and happy customers. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, and improve readability.
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Rob Graham wrote:
the crap hardware
it was running some older Windows version, so nothing wrong there. If Win7 doesn't like some parts of it, the installer should say so, rather than silently fail. This is crappy software behavior, for which there is no excuse whatsoever. :|
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, and improve readability.
if(Processor.CannotPerformJump) goto InformUser; // TODO: Why doesn't this work?
:rolleyes:
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If Win7 does not like some hardware part, it should say so; maybe a driver is not available, an essential function is not provided, whatever. Some incompatibility could be justified, but just failing to install without notice is not acceptable. As long as Microsoft does not understand this, they will not provide the customer satisfaction they claim they want to offer, and they'll keep wondering what it is other companies do to get loyal and happy customers. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, and improve readability.
If you'll read the OP again, you'll note that it didn't "refuse to install without notice". Instead it failed most of the way through, likely due to a flaw in the hardware...bad disk blocks and faulty RAM (or bad power supplies) are not the fault of the software, nor can the software be expected to survive them.
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So... today's task: Successfully install Windows 7 on my old folks' PC. First try... The install takes an hour to begin, another to get to the first restart... freeze. Darn. Second try... same. Darn 2. Get new disc, retry install. The install takes an hour to begin, hour and a half to first restart... freeze. Darn 3. About 3-4 "darns" later... It took me removing one of the hard drives (it had two), one of the graphic cards (it had two) and half of the RAM (two bars out of four) and clearing the BIOS in order to get a Windows 7 installation to finish. Somebody said that Windows' supposed to be friendly? Well... darn.. uhm.. I lost count. :)
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
Personally I'd look at the hardware before the OS. Doing a clean install of 7 on a measly netbook with 1GB, from initial boot from DVD to having a desktop ready to use, takes me 18 minutes, including the time needed to specify settings such as my WPA key.
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Dan Neely wrote:
but the ram problem smells like a bad DIMM; which should be checked with memtest86
Thought of it myself. Checked it. No issues.
Dan Neely wrote:
As far as the hard drives go, because windows installers only ask which HD to use if it's not 'obvious' to the installer it's generally best to disconnect everything except the OS drive if possible.
So, in order to reinstall Windows, you have to open the case, disconnect all but one hard drives? Come on, you can't say that's acceptable. Even worse... When I tried to install with both HDDs, if I select the second drive as target, Weven still created its 100MB system partition on the first one. That's just plain annoying.
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
rastaVnuce wrote:
t, Weven still created its 100MB system partition on the first one. That's just plain annoying.
That won't happen if the first disk is partitioned BEFORE the install. If it is not partitioned disk0 becomes the default boot disk, hence the 100MB partition containing the boot loader and system recovery tools.
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How on earth did you figure out that the hardware's crap? Weven being unable to handle something puts the hardware in that category? I've installed a whole bunch of Linux and BSD distros on it, Windows XP and Vista and even tried out Hackintosh for the kicks of it... All worked just fine. Crappy hardware or crappy Windows? You make the call...
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
rastaVnuce wrote:
How on earth did you figure out that the hardware's crap?
If you have to remove it for the install to go to completion, that certainly suggests it's not entirely healthy.
rastaVnuce wrote:
I've installed a whole bunch of Linux and BSD distros on it, Windows XP and Vista and even tried out Hackintosh for the kicks of it... All worked just fine.
Of course there's absolutely no possibility that the hardware has gone south since you did those installs...
rastaVnuce wrote:
Crappy hardware or crappy Windows? You make the call...
I did.