Windows 7: Windows 7 Freezes at "Completing Installation"

MKtorn · 15 Jul 2011

Hi There,
I assembled new P8P67 LE B3, Intel Core i5-2300, 8 Gig DDR3 1600 RAM with 1tb SATA HDD and tried to install Windows 7 Home Premium 64 SP1 on it ( clean installation to unassigned partition). Installation went all way down to "Completing installation" and reboot once and Windows logo appeared and then it freezes. I can load in a safe mode and disabled all devices under “!” mark in device manager and rebooted the system, but it freezes again. I brows internet and found that people had similar problem with different ways to solve and tried few of them and failed.
I tried following:
- Disconnected USB all drives (only mouse in my case);
- Reduced memory to 4 G (one chip of 2 that I have)
- Switched from IDE to AHCI and back;
- Installed drivers from ASUS disk under safe mode and disabled all drives in “Other” group;
- Errors in a Log are related to install something from online and product code verifications, but I wasn’t prompted to input product code yet!

Please Help!!!

Thanks in advance,
Michael

Bare Foot Kid · 15 Jul 2011

Hello MKtorn, welcome to Seven Forums!

Sometime Windows has issues installing to such large partitions as 1 & 2TB, perhaps running the clean command and creating a single 100GB partition to do the installation to will help and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bare Foot Kid

As the HDD is fairly new and the Windows 7 install is fairly new also, perhaps if you clean the HDD using the clean and not the clean all command and then create a 100GB partition to do the clean install to it may help.

Have a look at this to boot to diskaprt.

DISKPART : At PC Startup

Then use Step One of this one to run the clean and not the clean all as listed, the clean only over-writes the format configuration data and only takes seconds and the clean all over-writes the entire HDD and takes hours, and should not be necessary on a 'new' HDD.

Then use Step Two, either #2 or #3 to create and mark "Active" the partition(s) and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Additional Secure Erase / Wipe Information

MKtorn · 15 Jul 2011

Thanks for your reply,
That's what I did:
I had 320 G partition and I deleted it and command Windows to install on it as unassigned. It Created System assogned partition of 100 M itself and used remaining part of that partition.
Unfortunately that didn't solve a problem.
Michael

kegobeer · 15 Jul 2011

I would go down to 4GB RAM and remove any non-essential hardware (anything not built into the motherboard, excluding your video card), and attempt to reinstall.

Bare Foot Kid · 15 Jul 2011

If the Hard Disk Drive is used perhaps you should run the full clean all command to wipe secure erase the entire HDD and then create a partition to do the install to using diskpart.
Using the installer to format and create partitions is a useless proposition and can cause additional issues.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Where did the Windows 7 installer come from, did you download and burn it to DVD yourself?

MKtorn · 15 Jul 2011

BFK: I tried both DVDs - 1 burned from download (using MS provided utility) and 1 from MS (Upgrade version which was initially on top of Win Server 2003 64). Both stopped at same point. So I assume disk isn't a problem.
kegobeer: I tried that. Please see the list of actions in first post.

If it helps: The actual stop point is second reboot in "Completing Installation"(after registry update).

Thanks for your help.
Michael

Bare Foot Kid · 15 Jul 2011

Run the clean all wipe secure erase of the entire HDD and start another clean install to be sure.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Additional Secure Erase / Wipe Information

gregrocker · 15 Jul 2011

Best to take it down to 2gb RAM for install if possible.

Can you default to onboard graphics chip in BIOS or physically uninstall or change the Video card?

If not, try uninstalling just the display driver in Device Manager accessed this way during install: Device Manager - Access During Windows 7 Installation

What other drivers are showing in error, and which are in error because of no driver or failure to start device?

MKtorn · 25 Jul 2011

I am glad to say that issue solved! Thanks a lot to all of you from that forum, but key problem solver was a guy Alex from MS Technical support. The problem has been solved after disabling video card in device manager. I was scared to do that before. I believed that this will lead to “no video” situation since I have only one vide card. In fact that action disabled only driver.
So the successful installation steps were following:
1. Minimize comp configuration:
- Only 1 HDD;
- Only one chip of RAM (4 G in my case);
- Only PS2 keyboard;
2. Optimize HDD as recommended at : (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html)
3. Run complete installation up to the “Completing installation step” freeze.
4. Activate Computer Manager as described by SheilaP at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproinstall/thread/7d765b66-17c6-46e8-94e2-dd39b5b504c1?prof=required;
5. Disable all devices with “!” mark and video card also (even if it doesn’t have “!”, as it was in my case). Continue the installation.
Again special thanks to :
Bare Foot Kid from http://www.sevenforums.com;
SheilaP from http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproinstall/thread/7d765b66-17c6-46e8-94e2-dd39b5b504c1?prof=required;
Alex from MS Technical support.

Sincerely,
Michael

Bare Foot Kid · 25 Jul 2011

Hello again Michael, good to see you got it sorted and thanks for the update.

Windows 7: Windows 7 Freezes at "Completing Installation"

Windows 7 Freezes at "Completing Installation" problems?