I didn't pay anything beyond what came with the Dell system.
Yes. A Core2 system and this Ivy Bridge system, just not on the solid state drive.
I called to activate with the Core2 system. I haven't activated on the Ivy Bridge system because it's not yet installed how I want it (i.e. on one of the SSDs as opposed to HDDs).
Another forum is suggesting that it may be my new board isn't providing proper AHCI drivers during the install.
If it's an older disk pre-SP1 it might not have the latest AHCI drivers in it. You can download the latest official Win7 installer iSO w/SP1 from Digital River online. You can also insert drivers at Load Drivers link at Drive Selection screen, but this is mainly indicated if no drivers show up in window - and you need to get that far during install!
Make sure you've worked through all of the troubleshooting steps given thusfar, report back results of each, so we can give you others.
It is pre-SP1.
I do get that far. I can choose the drive, format the drive, and use the command prompt to clean/enable MBR, etc.
I generally get past the "copying installation files step" and it hangs on the "extracting installation files" step. Once it got further and bluescreened (with non-descript errors).
Will do. I appreciate all your advice Greg. Items of attack after work are (in no particular order):
1) Flash the drive firmware
2) Make sure I have the latest BIOS
3) Install AHCI drivers manually
I appreciate the help Greg and I'll report back.
So I am up and running, but sadly can not explain why or how it came to be.
I installed new firmware. No go.
I installed the latest BIOS. No go.
I then ran clonezilla and copied windows from my HDD. Forgot to copy the boot partition so of course it didn't boot.
I booted to the Windows disk to run repair. It found a boot problem but failed to fix it.
For poops and grins, I decided to try one last time. I run the installer, and it goes through.
Thanks for your suggestions. Sorry I can't be any help for future users; this seems random.
It's likely running Startup Repair a second time is what did it, since to write the System boot files it requires running Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times. Sometimes two times works.
The partition must have also been marked Active since it will normally only write the boot files to the Active partition.
So you still want to clean reinstall? If so you can run the installer from Win7 desktop, to overwrite C.
You're right, there is a windows.old folder so I think it did repair.
I'm happy enough with it up and running. I may re-install at a later date. Thanks again!
A windows.old folder results from clean reinstalling from the old OS, which it contains.
Well, the system is fairly unstable. It blue screens often, generally during program installation.
Memcheck86 returned tons of errors.
Is "good RAM" perfect (ie should there be zero errors) or are some to be expected? I can easily return the modules if they're problematic.
You want to carefully follow the steps in RAM - Test with Memtest86+ to isolate the stick(s) which are bad and also test the slots which can themselves be at fault.
Yah, that's what I've been doing.
I hope it's the RAM.
Every time I build a system I say "this is the last time."
This is the last time.
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