Windows 7: Can't get W7 to install over existing vista partition

I'm trying to install Windows 7 on an HP DV6-1253cl notebook from a USB flash drive and running into problems that are preventing the install. (Note: It's not the rig that is in my system specs.)

When I try and clean install Windows 7 64-bit over the existing Vista system partition (C), I get the following error.

"Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information."

Thing is, setup shows that partition as well as the HP recovery partition and an external USB drive that is also connected to this notebook and offers all of those as choices for installing Windows 7 onto.

Can anyone help me figure out why Windows 7 won't install on the existing Vista C partition and tell me how to get it to install?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

harpua

Clean install or upgrade?

Clean install, but now I'm thinking I might just try to solve the problem by trying an upgrade install.

Remove the external.

Set the boot order to go to the hard drive first, and use the boot list option to boot of the usb instead of the boot order.

That would be one thing to try there while it would seem there's another problem preventing the installation from proceeding since you should be able to select the custom install option and select the present Vista primary.

harpua Is this being tried with a usb key made up by following the guide or are you mounting the 7 iso on the flash drive there?

I had a very similar issue trying to install Windows 7 to a hard drive. Googled it and it was an issue in vista too. Reordered the boot order and disable the other drive and suddenly this error didn't pop up. It has something to do with the install not liking multiple hardrives on some hardware setups.

What I was finding when simply having the optical drive set as second in the boot order it would somehow effect how Windows loaded at times or simply see a stall while all of the setup files were successfully copied to the drive. Once you disable all but the host boot drive set as default in the bios Windows would allows load up and complete any fresh installation going on.

One problem I get asked on at times is where the floppy search option seen for premade desktops gets in the way when someone is performing a clean install and Windows fails to load without the disk in the drive. But that is on desktops with or without certainly most "without" a floppy drive even installed there.

Disabling everything but the intended OS boot drive is what is called a "forced boot" from that drive/device alone.

Is that Vista Partition the only partition on your System. Because if it is It's probably the System Partition that contains all your Bootloader files. You should try and Shrink the Vista partition and then format the UnPartitioned space you get and install 7 on that and then use some Partition Software (NOT THE ONE INCLUDED WITH 7) to format the Vista partition and then extend the 7 partition.

Hope I helped!

ZeshanA

I made one usb key for GParted there for working with any laptops as well as desktops that allow you to boot off of flash drives. But you would need to look the amount of free drive space as well as the size of the drive itself before deciding to split it up for any dual boot setup.

The fast way there to clean Vista off would be the simple reformat of the Vista primary as long as you already made up a set of recovery disks if the recovery partition needs to be removed to allow the space needed rather then spliting a small drive or simply stuffing both on minimum partitions. You want to be able to install your usual programs and still have drive space onhand.

Thanks for all the responses. Before I saw them, I did what I said I would try above and that was to just do an upgrade install of 7 right over the vista partition. That worked out OK so the problem is solved for the time being.

But you guys got me wondering what would have happened if I had disconnected the external drive and tried again to do a clean install. Btw, of course the USB flash drive was properly made bootable and the files (not the actual ISO itself) from the Windows 7 ISO were copied over to the bootable flash drive, so that wasn't the source of the problem.

I get the sense that perhaps if I had tried disconnecting the external hard drive from the system, it might have allowed me to clean install Windows 7. But since this is just a temporary installation on a "borrowed" rig while my main machine is in the shop getting its system board replaced under warranty, I'm just happy to have Windows 7 installed and working, even if it isn't a clean install.

(OT: While this is a nice powerful machine, it sure is not easy getting used to the keyboard and ergonomics of an HP after coming from years of using Thinkpads. Kind of nice to have 1 GB of dedicated video ram, however.)