windows 7 reinstall freezing at "Setup is starting services"

I ran Spybot Seek and Destroy on my Gateway laptop running Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium. My startup time had gone to a crawl as had the time to load pages in explorer. After Spybot was done it reccomended to "quarentine" certain files which I did and saved the registry of those files. When I rebooted to finish the process Windows would not retart.

I tried several restore points including one I created before running Spybot, but Windows still wouldn't start.

When nothing else in the recovery options worked I opted to reinstall Windows from factory default settings. Part way through the installation process I got the error "Windows cannot complete installation on this hard drive. Windows will restart installation after restarting."

Since that point, it is freezing at the Setup is starting service screen (or it is moving at such a slow pace I can't tell. It's been about 2hrs).

Any ideas?

Spybot lost favor about ten years ago when it bloated up and got buggy and has never been recommended here where we favor newer tools like Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware.

What should have been a simple restore operation might have been complicated by having a Factory install which is the worst possible install of Win7 one can have, larded with bloatware and duplicate utilties which interfere with better versions built into Win7. Most tech enthusiasts will not run such an install but instead Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

Everything needed is in the blue link to get and keep a perfect install, including the tools and methods which work best with Win7.

Thanks, Rocker. I read the Clean Reinstall link you provided and have two questions. Since this laptop won't even boot up, can I use my other laptop (runs the same version of Windows 7) to create the thumbdrive for the Clean Reinstall? If so, do I use the Windows 7 product key from that laptop?

Yes, you can use another PC to create the installer.

No, you would use the key from the PC you're reinstalling.

Thanks, I was able to run the Clean Reinstall. I really appreciate the help. I hit one snag I'm concerened about. When I was prompted to enter my Windows Product Key it paused for a second and then continued on before I could enter it. Is it possible that the Product Key was saved on the laptop and it picked this up on its own.

I don't know if this has led to problems in the setup. It didn't install drivers for my both my Ethernet and Network Controllers as well as the PCI Simple Communications Controller. The problem with the first two is that they are preventing me from connecting to the internet to get the drivers I need.

This may be a terribly ignorant question, but if I use a different model laptop can I go to the Gateway site, look up the drivers I need and save them to a thumdrive or disk? I was afraid of trying and downloading drivers to the other laptop that might cause conflicts on it if they installed directly from the download.

Thank you for your help. You've been a lifesaver at a very difficult time.

jimliz2 said:

This may be a terribly ignorant question, but if I use a different model laptop can I go to the Gateway site, look up the drivers I need and save them to a thumdrive or disk? I was afraid of trying and downloading drivers to the other laptop that might cause conflicts on it if they installed directly from the download. .

It's not ignorant at all although it is clearly stated in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 that you should go to the PC model's Support Downloads webpage to download your network LAN driver to your backup so that if it's not provided during install you can install it quickly to get online and do all Updates.

I could have just found it for you in 5 minutes now if the model had been mentioned.

Shimshom said:

You can download the drivers on any other computer and transfer it to the one you install it on. Make sure when starting the download if you're given the choice of Run or Save to choose Save, save it to the USB stick then copy and paste to your desktop and run it from there

Thanks!

I went to Gateway's driver page. Entered my model number and OS, but in the list of drivers I could download nothing was labeled as Network Adapter or Ethernet Controller. Should I be looking for it under another title?

gregrocker said:

jimliz2 said:

This may be a terribly ignorant question, but if I use a different model laptop can I go to the Gateway site, look up the drivers I need and save them to a thumdrive or disk? I was afraid of trying and downloading drivers to the other laptop that might cause conflicts on it if they installed directly from the download. .

It's not ignorant at all although it is clearly stated in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 that you should go to the PC model's Support Downloads webpage to download your network LAN driver to your backup so that if it's not provided during install you can install it quickly to get online and do all Updates.

I could have just found it for you in 5 minutes now if the model had been mentioned.

Sorry I missed your post when replying above. I should mention I'm in excruciating nerve pain - 5 back surgerys and bone has grown around a nerve again compressing. thanks for the patience.

I saw what you mentioned in Clean Reinstall but misread it. I thought I needed to do a back up on my laptop which I couldn't boot at the time....just goofed.

My model is Gateway 5v55c.

Thanks for your patience I'll learn to provide better information and follow yours. Not quite myself right now.

That's not a Gateway model number, so look again on the Gateway sticker on PC closely for one that you can put in here to get the wireless LAN driver: Drivers & Downloads