Issues with most OS installations

A

asiwa

New Member
So I've recently built a new rig (mostly for video editing and the occasional LAN party) and would of course like to install Windows 7 on it...but there's an issue - the system refuses to run anything but Ubuntu.

Don't get me wrong, I love Ubuntu like my brother, as I do any Linux distro, but the lack of compatibility is slowly killing me. So here are the specifics.

I first attempted to bring in my WD 200GB hard drive from my old system, which was a generic, store-bought HP. It had a stable Windows 7 install. Of course, when I attempted to boot that, I was met with blue screens and hex codes. So I pulled that out and attempted a clean install on the new rig with one of my new WD 500GB hard disks...but when the boot disk gets to the low-res partitioning/install screen, the install just...stops. It doesn't even make it so far as to bring up a window, I just get an arrow, and an hourglass for a few seconds. *Phew* So I suppose Windows 7 isn't cutting it, might as well try Vista and all of my Linux distros...

Nothing. The Vista disks did the EXACT same thing, getting to the install screen and freezing before anything happens (to clarify, the optical drive literally stops reading the disk at this point). As well, my Mint, Fedora, and OpenSUSE distro CD's all did this, going through the boot sequence and simply stopping right before the OS loads. Oh dearie dear, what to do...Ubuntu it is.

Surprisingly, Ubuntu was a success. But only just. My question is, what on earth could possibly be causing this? I've run memtests, I've formatted all of my disks, I've tried removing new hardware (graphics cards, etc.), reset BIOS settings to default, etc. etc and nothing has improved. I will most likely try and borrow another Windows 7 disk from a friend, but I am doubtful at best. If worse comes to worst, I may have to flash the BIOS or even replace the motherboard...but if Ubuntu works, then it must be something else. Any help here would really be appreciated. Specs below, anything not there is here:

CPU Cooler: Corsair H70 Self-contained liquid cooler
Case: CoolerMaster HAF 932
Optical Drive: Lite-On 24X CD/DVD Combo Drive (lightscribe, dual-layer, all that jazz)
HDDs: 3 Western Digital 500GB Caviar Black HDs (NOT in RAID)
 
Hmm, The only CDROM/DVD drive I ever had that was NFG was a "Lite-on". Much prefer LG. Had over a dozen of them and no probs. 1 Lite-on - Probs.

Apart from that, you could try slowing your ram timing settings a tad to see if that helps.
 
Probably bad sectors on the hard disk. And the reason you got the error messages on the HDD from the HP is because the drivers and OS install conflicted with the new hardware on your new PC.
 
Sorry to say this but I doubt the bad sector bit. I think it is probably the CDROM drive is defective. However, you can check for bad sectors by going to this site : http://www.testhdd.narod.ru/ and clicking the link in the upper left corner. That will download "TestHDD" or "THDD" which is an excellent freeware HDD checker. The latest version, which is what you get, can check both IDE and SATA drives either on a general sweep test, a repeated general sweep test, or on a "Sector by Sector" test; and the test can be ordered to start and finsh at any specified points on the drive. And though the site is Russian, the program is in English.

Further it gives you a constant readout of the readspeed of the part of the drive being tested, (Normal for that is speed drifting up and down slightly; but big fluctuations are an indication of damage).

Additionally it gives you a list of every bad sector on the drive with the option to remap the drive to exclude them, (or any other sectors you wish to exclude, i.e. damaged but still readable), and it also gives you a graph showing all damage to the drive, wherein undamaged parts of the drive are a flat line, and damaged but still readable sectors are spikes of varying height up from that line. The higher the spike, the worse the damage.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the input, I appreciate it.

Unfortunately I don't think that either of the issues presented are causing the problem. I couldn't run TestHDD, for whatever reason I'm not sure. I have Wine installed, but it doesn't seem to associate with any file type, it just reads "unknown". I was able to use smartmontools though, and it told me that none of the three HDDs were failing or even damaged.

As for the CD/DVD drive, I thought that what you had said would be a logical explanation, so I pulled out the trusty old LG drive from my old PC. Even then, it still refused to run the Windows installer. I even tried slowing the RAM timings down like you said, JHM, but to no avail.

I'm at a loss as to what could be going on. Should I flash the BIOS? I figure since it has been updated to the most recent version, perhaps I could flash it to an earlier release and see if that will solve any issues, I mean I know the point of BIOS updates is to present fixes, but you never know...
 
Sorry, forgot to mention THDD runs from a floppy. What you have to do is create a bootable floppy and then copy the TestHDD file onto it. Put the floppy in your machine with the floppy drive set as the first boot drive; and when the boot comes up to "A:/" type in : TestHDD.com and you are off and running.
 
Maybe you should try replacing the IDE cable on your CDROM drive. EDIT : and HDD too for that matter.
 
Last edited:
Done. I replaced the IDE for the old drive, the new one is a SATA. All of the HDDs are SATA. BUT it turns out that you were correct in some bad sectors, one of the new WD drives had quite a bit going for it...probably the last time I'll be buying any number of those.

After discovering this and a couple hours of tinkering I managed to get the x64 version of Windows XP installed. From here I can just boot a Windows 7 disk inside XP and install that way. I want to thank everyone for their help, I most likely would have lost my entire weekend to this had I not posted.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top