wierdest Win7 x64 install problem

Hi all,

I am having the wierdest problem installing win7 x64 now. System specs are in my profile.

First of all, I bought and installed win7 yesterday without a problem. Then, after installing numerous drivers and using it for ~2 hours it just wouldn't boot anymore, not even safe mode. It went to the "windows loading" logo with the windows sysmbol and then would be stuck there forever. Repairing wouldn't work either. So I thought "what a great start", thinking it was some driver related issue and proceeded to format my harddrive and reinstall windows 7. Here is where the fun started.
Whereas the 1st installation worked flawlessly, this one did not. Whatever I do, it will always crash at the same point in time.

It goes something like this: It unpacks and extracts fine, then it installs services, etc and reboots once, no problems so far. Then it goes to the "completing installation" point and after some time my screen goes black once, then the setup reappears, then my screen goes black another time and stays black forever. (I think this is the time it changes resolution?). I know it is normal for the screen to go black twice during "finishing installation", but in my case it stays black.

Things I've tried and which failed to help:

- updated bios to newest version
- booting with just 1 Ram installed
- removing all external deviced
- removing all internal cards (in my case just sound card) save for the graphics card
- disabling every motherboard onboard device in bios
- restoring bios to factory default
- setting my sata controller to AHCI
- disabling USB controller/unplugging every single USB device during install
- removing all Sata devices save for the HDD I want to install to


Nothing helped. I just can't install win7 anymore, although it worked flawlessly the first time.
I have reinstalled Vista twice to check if it works - it does. Absolutely no problem during Vista install.

I am at a loss here, hope someone can help.

wallyinnc said:

Hi Instinctive, welcome to the forums.

Indeed it is intriguing. You tried many of the known solutions already and it won't work.

And more intriguing is that it worked once. Unfortunately you don't have onboard video that you could remove the graphics card, and it only has DVI. Would you have access to another card to try with D-Sub?

I will give a suggestion that might sound stupid, but I can't think of anything else: is the DVD clean? I once was banging my head on the wall trying to install something that wouldn't' work until I found the kids had been playing with the DVD and little smeared fingerprints were preventing the disc from being read accordingly.

Let us know if you make progress.

Hi,

the problem is solved now, posting from win7 actually.
Turns out my graphics card apparently died right after I installed win7, although it didn't actually fully die, only partially. 2D worked fine, which is why it worked for Bios and half of the install, but apparently some other parts were fried, which is why it wouldn't boot into windows and always crash when it tried to change resolutions during install.
Finally figured that out after grudgingly reinstalling Vista. Funnily enough Vista actually worked. That is, until I installed my Nvidia driver, at which point Vista wouldn't boot anymore either.

Upgrading to win7 set me back more than I thought it would in terms of money, but I guess this one isn't Microsoft's fault :)