Hurrumph gnrrr :(
Well the title says it all really. I tried to install windows 7 on my laptop and ran in to a series of increasing problems culminating in a dead laptop.
Firstly windows 7 won't install from a booted version of windows earlier than Vista so I tried a boot install instead. On booting the installer could not read any disk drives, asked me to load a driver and then promptly told me that none of my drives were compatible with the install requirements. Ok I thought well if I re-format then obviously that will fix that, surely I thought. No!! The formatting procedure allowed me to format partitions, delete partitions, make new partitions but not make partitions that will accept an install of Windows 7. Ok I thought to myself (starting to get frustrated now) I'll just forget this and re-install my old winXP. Ooops, oh dear now the install tells me that I have no hard disks installed at all. Oh well it was an old warhorse, had it for about 5 years and it was the badgers nadgers in its day, I would have liked to put it out to pasture, give it a notice retirement but not have it killed in the line of duty on some pointless raid!!!
Word to the wise, don't install Win7 on older machines, its just cruel really :(
r.i.p. Rock Extreme 3.7Ghz
Richard
I'm no computer guy, but I have torn them apart for years. I believe running FDISK before FORMAT would have cleared up all the partition issues.
I'd say you should not try to format only a partition, but the whole hard drive...
You should still be able to reinstall xp though.
Quote from: cyphyr on January 18, 2009, 09:58:47 AM
Firstly windows 7 won't install from a booted version of windows earlier than Vista
I installed windows 7 next to XP. Maybe it's a partition issue, I've got more than one hard drive for each OS. That's the only way I'd ever recommend multiboot. Partitions cause so many problems but with a hard drive for each, if you have a problem with a new OS you just take the hard drive out.
@PG - yes that it what I do now as well. They are so cheap these days partitioning is a pain that is not necessary anymore. Also the benefit of running FDISK allows you to blow away old partitions and get access to the entire hard drive, before you format. I learned that the hard way also! >:(
I have one of those dead cheap machines that come with Linux, I bought it last summer when the old one I had been using for all the lightweight tasks died on me and I didn't want to gum mp my main machine with loads of small apps. When the machine came it had a SATA DVD re-writer, no problem I just downloaded a newer version of Linux than the one supplied and installed that; only problem half the apps I need won't run under Linux/Wine.
I have a brand new never used XP Home install disc that came with a machine that I built a couple of years ago so no problem. It won't boot from the SATA DVD. Windows 7; problem solved, made the install disc, ran the installer which allowed me to remove the partitions I had made for Linux and format the drive etc. the install ran fine until the final "Setting up hardware" stage when the machine went into hibernation mode. Now when I start it up I see the initial splash screen and then straight into hibernation mode with no way of waking it up. I don't even get the chance to tell it to boot from CD/DVD again.
Brilliant! A dead box I haven't even been able to properly use yet.
That's why they call Windows 7 a Beta version I guess...