Windows 7 - Issues installing from USB

Hello all, great forum. I'm on a mission to install Windows 7 along side Ubuntu (which is already installed). I've got a fresh hard drive waiting for Windows, but I seem to be having some issues when installing from USB. I've got a bootable USB stick, and I've modified my bios to boot from USB first. When I reboot my computer, the windows seven install setup begins. I select the new hard drive and begin installation. All goes well, and it eventually says "Windows needs to restart to continue". The computer reboots (remember, it's booting from USB first), and immediately goes right back to the beginning of the set up process. So I'm in the infinite loop of running the set up process, but it never gets passed that. Any ideas with what I'm doing wrong? Set up seems to go fine, but after reboot, it just starts over again.

Thanks for any advice!

gg

take the usb stick out after it has finished installing but before it boots again.

I will give that a shot. I wasn't sure if all files had been transfered by that point. Will post back how that goes. Thanks!

good luck

Ok, did the install as you mentioned, everything completes fine, reboots, removed the usb key, and it boots straight to the already installed Linux os. I thought that windows would wipe out the MBR when it installed...still very puzzled Thanks again for your responses!

erm. i'm not sure i've only done it the other way (ie installed 7 first then a linux).

someone will be along shortly with more help than me.

No worries, your responses are appreciated Thanks!

Hello GG, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This can be a common problem sometimes when your BIOS boot priority settings are set to boot first to a USB flash drive.



To work around this:

• Boot first to the USB flash drive and start the installation as usual.
• As soon as the computer restarts the first time during installation, boot into BIOS.
• Set your boot order to boot from the hard drive first now instead of the USB flash drive.
• Exit BIOS and let the computer restart to finish the installation.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

If the motherboard and bios facilitate entering into a boot menu ( in most cases by hitting F11 or F12 during the boot process), then without changing the boot priority in the bios one can boot from any of the bootable devices listed in the boot menu.

This should be the most preferred way of doing it. No exercise of pulling out the USB device or reentering the bios setup to change the boot priority.

It also facilitates injecting any additional drivers like the AHCI/RAID -which one might store in the same bootable media - at the appropriate stage in the installation process.

this is grub related i am guessing, can you use the Windows 7 disk to fixmbr? and then after you can boot into Windows 7 use ur linux disk to reinstall grub, but this time it will see ur Windows 7 install