New
#1
Windows 7 Professional Will Not Install on Acer 3800 Desktop
The Computer:
Acer Aspire M3800 Desktop
Vista Home Media Center
4GB of RAM
640GB 7200RPM Hitachi Hard Drive 3.0 Gb/s
The background:
Hard Drive crashed. I spent $795 for a data recovery company to recover the defective hard drive. I gave them a Western Digital Caviar Black 32MB Cache 7200 RPM 1TB 3.0Gb/s SATAII hard drive to transfer all the recovered data to (included the original Vista system recovery files). The files were recovered 100%. I transferred the recovered files to a Seagate external usb 500GB hard drive. I used a ATA/IDE to USB adapter to and connected to my laptop to wipe the WD Caviar HD clean using Ubuntu and then partitioned (20GB / 980GB) and then formated (NTFS). Installed the WD Caviar HD into the Acer and attempted to do a clean install of Windows 7 Professional with no success.
The problem(s):
#1: The computer kept shutting down while Win7 is Expanding Windows files (0%). I discovered that the SATA Controllers were set to RAID. I changed them to IDE and noticed improvement. However, Win7 would keep shutting down during Expanding Windows Files (21%, 33%, 55%, 56%, 63%....10 freakin' times until finally, it installed).
#2: I noticed the BIOS needed an updating. I couldn't figure out how to use a USB thumb drive to flash the BIOS in DOS at startup. Tried several times and several ways to no avail. I gave up and proceeded with installation attempts #4, 5 and 6. Any assistance with this problem would be greatly appreciated. I tried using unetbootin but I couldn't get the acer BIOS files in DOS (something along the likes of "Filepath Incorrect". I tried a bazzillion different ways to access them but, like I said, finally suck f*&K it!
#3: After the 10th installation attempt, I was merely seconds away from completing install when the computer shut down on its own and I was mortified. I finally stuck a steak knife through the monitor.
I checked all the SATA cables, I unplugged/plugged the power supply cables. I checked system settings and it's operating at 85 degrees Fahrenheit and the CPU fan is spinning at 975 RPM. I also unseated/seated both RAM modules and sprayed the hell out of the fans. Before I punt this hunk of shit into the gutter, I'd like to, at the very least, learn what I'm doing wrong/right. I'm pretty savvy with this stuff...I just don't have all the certificates to flex my muscles. What do you folks think is the problem here?
#2: