Thread: Windows 7 install issue

Sounds like a partition might be inaccessible for whatever reason. Tell your computer to boot from the optical drive and start the installation of Windows 7. Here you will be presented with some options related to your partitions. If everything looks right, just continue. If something is wrong, maybe that will shed some light on the issue.

In order to choose boot priority, you can in most situations just reboot your computer and press the F8 button while it's booting. If that doesn't work, enter your BIOS and set up the boot configuration in there.

If you've already done this, then your original post isn't clear enough about what has and hasn't been done.

edit: oh, I just realised you're probably using a Linux bootloader. That can very easily fuck with your Windows installation. That is probably what your computer is complaining about. I suggest you remove the Linux installation completely. It's useless anyway, since you have Windows 7.

It looks like it is still trying to boot from the HDD instead of the DVD drive. Make sure you set the boot order correctly in bios, or that you are choosing the correct drive in the boot menu. How exactly were you trying to boot the CD?

Originally Posted by Marvo

In order to choose boot priority, you can in most situations just reboot your computer and press the F8 button while it's booting. If that doesn't work, enter your BIOS and set up the boot configuration in there.

The advanced options menu won't work, it has to be done from the BIOS or from a boot menu, which may or may not be present depending on the mobo.

edit: oh, I just realised you're probably using a Linux bootloader. That can very easily fuck with your Windows installation. That is probably what your computer is complaining about. I suggest you remove the Linux installation completely. It's useless anyway, since you have Windows 7.

The linux bootloader shouldn't fuck with windows, GRUB is pretty good at recognizing the correct windows boot partition. And since the problem is booting from the CD this is completely irrelevant.

The BIOS is already set to boot from the CDROM first, then the HD. When I hit "continue" it just comes back to the same error screen after a few seconds.

I've completely removed the old drives from the computer and have installed a fresh new pair of 1TB drives. There are no boot loaders or old O/S installations left to interfere with anything.

I primarily use Ubuntu Linux, but would like to dual-boot Win7 also so I may use a few audio/video applications that only run on Windows. If I can get Win7 in and running properly, then Ubuntu will add Win7 to its boot loader and work just fine. Again, these are brand new blank drives.

That's weird that that would be showing up on a blank HDD... I thought that would only show up if the system partition was unable to find the boot partition. Weird. Can you boot linux from the live CD?
EDIT: double check the boot order. Sometimes a default CD Drive shows up that your system might not even have. You might have just selected the wrong drive. You said CDROM drive, but it should be a DVD drive.

Originally Posted by LikesToTrip

It looks like it is still trying to boot from the HDD instead of the DVD drive. Make sure you set the boot order correctly in bios, or that you are choosing the correct drive in the boot menu. How exactly were you trying to boot the CD?

I'm going to fire it up once again and select the CDROM as the only boot device. Not sure why it would be trying to boot from a blank HDD when the CDROM is set to 1st priority.

Originally Posted by LikesToTrip

The linux bootloader shouldn't fuck with windows, GRUB is pretty good at recognizing the correct windows boot partition. And since the problem is booting from the CD this is completely irrelevant.

I'm currently dual-booted with Ubuntu and XP and everything works perfectly. At my office, I have a dual-boot with Win7 and Ubuntu which installed perfectly also. I'm starting to grow a bit suspicious of the CDROM drive itself, but it boots the XP and Ubuntu CDs just fine. Then again, Win7 is a DVD and I've never booted from a DVD before.

Originally Posted by LikesToTrip

That's weird that that would be showing up on a blank HDD... I thought that would only show up if the system partition was unable to find the boot partition. Weird. Can you boot linux from the live CD?

Certainly can. I can boot from my Ubuntu 10.04.2 Live CD, Win XP cd, Ultimate BootCD, etc.

Booting from a DVD shouldn't really be a problem. If you're certain that your system recognises both of your hard drives and optical drive, then I can't really imagine anything else than the DVD itself being faulty.

What I find suspicious about that initial screenshot you posted, is that it suggests you need to repair your Windows configuration, but according to what you're saying, there's nothing installed currently. Faulty DVD sounds very likely in fact.

You could test the DVD in another computer, though I wouldn't be surprised if the DVD works fine if a Windows installation is detected.

edit: vvv oh yeah, a CD-ROM drive won't read a DVD, but then most people call them CD-ROM drives, regardless of what they can actually read. Which is silly.

By the way what I said earlier about bootloaders is just what I've learned through personal experience with dualboots. Things can get messy if the Windows bootloader tries to override the Linux one. Then again, this was back in version 6 of Ubuntu or so. Things may have changed.

Then again, Win7 is a DVD and I've never booted from a DVD before.

You keep saying CDROM drive. Is that a mistype and it's a DVD drive, or are you trying to boot a DVD from a CD drive?

I'm one of the silly ones that calls it a CDROM drive. It's a DVD drive and I can open and browse the entire DVD structure when I'm booted into Linux. I just pulled out my 64-bit laptop, and got the same error message. It's also possible that the original ISO image I downloaded from my MSDN somehow got corrupted on the way here, so I'm re-downloading it and will generate a new license for it.

As far as which bootloader to install first, I have always let Windows have its way with the system first, them let Grub find Windows and add it to the Grub menu. Windows always seems to puke when Linux has the first partition on the hard drive, not to mention the fact that Windows installer will kill Grub or Lilo.

A search on Google for the 0xc0000000f error reveals a lot of people having issues once Win7 is installed and does the first reboot, but not on the initial DVD boot. This has me befuddled.

If it won't work for me, it's not a big deal. Linux is my preferred flavor of choice.

I assumed it was just a mistype I just wanted to make sure. Yea, it's probably just a faulty DVD like you suspect.

As far as which bootloader to install first, I have always let Windows have its way with the system first, them let Grub find Windows and add it to the Grub menu. Windows always seems to puke when Linux has the first partition on the hard drive, not to mention the fact that Windows installer will kill Grub or Lilo.

Absolutely, there's no reason to install linux first and then have to reinstall GRUB at the end and waste time when it could have been avoided.
You might just want to stick with XP since you only need it for a few applications. I prefer XP in some regards.

Originally Posted by LikesToTrip

Absolutely, there's no reason to install linux first and then have to reinstall GRUB at the end and waste time when it could have been avoided.
You might just want to stick with XP since you only need it for a few applications. I prefer XP in some regards.

Within the Microsoft family, I prefer XP as well. It's very stable and does everything I need it to. The whole motivation for getting Win7 working at home is so that I can perform some more of my software testing duties at home and maybe save some fuel by telecommuting a day or two each week. I already have an XP and Vista (ugh!) box but not a 7 box.

Good to see you found the problem, I hope you enjoy Windows 7. In my opinion it's one of the best operating system around.