Windows 7: Windows 7/Vista Installation Fails

No good. I was able to get the bios to read the USB stick as a hard disk, but when it booted up to install Windows 7 it failed when it was expanding the files (I got that black screen with the red pixels again).

I'll try installing the OS on the HD using another PC then.

If you don't want to go through SysPrep you can also adapt any Windows 7 installation for your version to start on other hardware using Paragon Adaptive Restore CD. This will also work on an image which is reimaged to your HD, just point Paragon CD and run it.

Okay. I switched the motherboard with the other shuttle PC I have and the installation worked the first time. I guess there was something malfunctioning on that board. It's times like this I wish I knew more about hardware.

But tell me this. For the hell of it, I switched the PATA optical drive with a SATA drive and I was unable to boot the setup for any of my windows 7/vista discs, but it worked just fine with the parallel drive. I know the sata drive is working because it is perfectly functional in my brother's HP machine for booting the same discs, etc. Are additional drivers needed, or is there a setting in the CMOS that needs to be changed?

Shutdown. Unplug. Disconnect all drives. Boot. Enter BIOS. Make sure they're gone. Change to Native AHCI if it's not already. Save BIOS. Shutdown. Unplug. Connect only the SATA optical drive. Boot. Enter BIOS. Make sure drive is recognized. Choose drive for boot. Save BIOS. Reboot.

Thanks. I will be sure to check for that in the future.