Windows 7 Install hangs after "Starting Windows" when booting from USB

VistaKing said:

The commands I posed in Diskpart will wipe all of the partitions inside the hard drive .

What is the equivalent for Partition wizard then? Since I cannot get to the recovery tools booting from an install disk with this HD, I was trying to find a solution that wouldn't require me to take my HD out of my laptop again to plug it into another computer if possible. Would it be better if I took it out and plugged it into my other computer, and ran Diskpart from an elevated command prompt on the OS of my other computer?

VistaKing said:

You cannot boot of the DVD ?

On a Dell press F12 on the Dell screen then choose optical drive or disc .

No I can, however it hangs after the "windows starting" screen, just showing a black screen with a mouse cursor. No matter how long I let it sit there, it stays like that. If the drive is taken out, or the dvd is booted using another computer with a different HD it makes it to the drive select screen without a hitch. People said this could be a problem with the hard drive that is causing it. It failed to SeaTools extended test, confirming something might be wrong. Gregrocker said the next step to try is to wipe the HD, as this sometimes fixes problems like this. Since I cannot boot using an install disk, as I stated earlier, I will be using a Partition Wizard Boot Disk, which has booted up fine, and can see my hard drive and all the partitions on it (including a hidden partition I didn't know was there).

Interestingly, it shows that the windows partition that is currently on the HD has no free space, which was not the case before my HD stopped booting windows. What should I do? Just delete all the partitions off the drive and try the install again, or do a complete wipe of the drive?

VistaKing said:

Wiping the hard drive should remove the partitions . Make sure you wipe the hard drive in question and not the hard drive that is normally on the other PC .

Okay, Partition wizard gives five methods to choose from:

• Fill Sectors with Zero (Quick)
• Fill Sectors with One (Quick)
• Fill Sectors with Zero & One (Slow)
• DoD 5220.22-M (3 passes) (Very Slow)
• DoD 5220.28-STD (7 passes) (Very Slow)

Which method should I choose? Or does it not matter? I was leaning toward the third option, since it seemed more thorough than the first two, and I think the last two seem like they might be a bit overkill, but I could be wrong. Which would give the most likely chance to fix the HD if it is in fact fixable by wiping it clean?

Sorry you had to ask the question five times Taji. Just use quick zero method which is equivalent to Diskpart Clean Command, since we're only concerned with wiping the boot sector of possibly conflicting code, not overwriting data so that it can't be recovered.

See if you can then partition the HD NTFS Primary using Partition Wizard Create Partition - Video Help and mark it Active using How to Set Active/Inactive partition -Partition Wizard Video Help. Then try install again.

Have you reset the BIOS to defaults? Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS - Reset BIOS

Is there a SATA controller settings choice in BIOS setup? Try AHCI first, if that fails try IDE.

Check one more time if this is an EFI BIOS. Look for any UEFI listings in all of the settings.

After re-reading your thread it appears the HD has failed two Extended drive diagnostics tests. I would run one more with Partition Wizard surface test and if it fails replace the HD as it has likely gone bad.

Well, I told partition wizard to wipe the disk, create a new NTFS partition and set it as active, but when it finished it says the file system is "Bad Disk" which I assume means the hard drive has gone kaput. Am I correct on this assumption?

Yeah. Did you also run the PW Surface Scan?

gregrocker said:

Yeah. Did you also run the PW Surface Scan?

No I have not, should I run it?