Cannot install W7 64 on xps 420  

I tried W7 32 bit loved it much faster for me than vista, then thought I would give W7 64bit a go after 4 days of pulling what hair I have left out I am still none the wiser.

I downloaded W7 64bit burnt it to a dvd and restarted Windows Home Premium 32bit.

I put the dvd in and booted from it, the install screen came up no probs,
selected custom install selected my D: Drive (500gb WD),[vista is installed on 2nd partition of C: 750gb with 1st partition used for storage b:]

I selected to install on D:

"Windows cannot find existing system partion or install on partition see log file"
'don't know where log file is??'
ok so formatted drive in advance options same error
deleted partition then selected new partition and tried again .. same error

tried b: and c: same error

tried downloading smbus drivers and using the load driver option to no avail.. although out of the drivers not sure which it needs so went through them one at a time each time coming across same error?

Saw a thread re nvida motherboard with similar issue and they somehow managed to force to go to basic drivers and it worked tried same route to no avail.

The Processor is Q6600 2.4 with 4GB RAM,

2 USB Drives 1TB, 500GB [K: and M:]
2 Drives not in RAID - 750GB and 500gb

updated all my drivers for whole system in windows 32bit to see if would make difference in the install (dont know why i though it would) and it didnt :)

Help!!

Had the same problem, took a while to figure out. You must install Win 7 x64 to the first drive recognized by the bios which should be C: drive. It's kinda tricky because you may have to disable all other drives in your system. If you don't know how then just unplug the cables to them. I believe this also means no usb devices. It should just be the drive you're installing to and your dvd drive.

BTW, this can be very problematic with other OS installed, especially XP, as you HDDs will be recognized in a different order. Install Win 7 x64 as mentioned above, reconnect your other disks and don't forget to be sure the your x64 drive is the first in your bios HDD order. The boot from your Win 7 or Vista dvd an choose the OS repair option. This will search your HDDs for any OSs it can find and add them to your Boot Manager. Once completed just find out what works and what doesn't and go from there.

Superb Thanks ! :)

Ok I have

4 hard drives

750GB - Split into B: and C: where C is the OS
500GB - D:

and two USB drives

it occured to me as well that having USB drives attached could screw things up so tried to detach them all

however i think it lists all the SD drives think there are four for the various types of SD cards.

Ok so heres my question can I disconnect all the SD drives and the D: drive and install on seperate partition of 750GB lets call it A?

or would the fact there are 3 partitions screw things up

if it just has one drive with 3 partitions will it accept that do you think?

Also if I changed the boot order to have D first I am guessing that it wouldnt find operating system and stall and wouldnt be able to dual boot? with two different drives it would just find windows 7 64bit and run in order to dual boot would need to change boot order every time

First of all forget driver letters and start thinking in terms of HDD units. Remove all units (unplug) including SDs, everything except the unit you plan on installing to and the dvd drive. The bios will assign the drive letters with c: going to the first partition of the first HDD unit it recognizes. At this point, I don't think it matters which partition you install Win 7 x64, only that it be on the first HDD unit. That's it, no magic; this has to do with the fact that x64 OSs from MS have the characteristic of or their roots in servers, hence the acceptance of only signed drivers. And must always be on the first HDD unit as far as I know, and servers do like usb/sd devices for the obvious reasons.

Hope this helps

ok will try when get home and let you know how i get on -

Thanks for all your help

I will remove all cables to internal 500gb drive and try and remove the sd card reader connections as well

that will leave the 750gb drive i will load up 32bit windows vista partition the drive so I have say 20gb partition for Windows 7 64 bit (or would you recommend more) restart and load up from windows 7 dvd.

once i have installed will reconnect everything keep the 750gb as first to boot should still give me option to load vista or windows 7?

Will Windows 7 see the other drives ok once they are reconnected as I think I noticed that when I formatted the wd 500gb drive under windows 7 installation that when i loaded up windows vista 32bit it asked me to format again - is there a specific formatting that works on both other than FAT32 (know there is a file size limitation)or does the byte size matter at all?

Also the WD External drives do you need special drivers or if they are NTFS any byte size they should be recognised?

Thanks again

I’m having a little trouble understanding what you’re asking? So here goes;
1. I don’t think you need to unplug the SD reader cable just remove any cards from it.
2. You’ll need a 35gb partition on your HDD unit for Win 7 x64. I try to remember, disk space is cheap my time isn’t.
3. Once Win 7 x64 installed and drives reconnected in proper order try to boot and see what you get. If all OSs not there follow my previous repair instructions.
4. If your drives were recognized under vista there shouldn’t be a problem with Win 7 and forget FAT32 (that ****s dead).
5. IF you’re missing devices drivers, welcome to x64, the search continues. Not trying to be flippant that’s what this board is all about.

Just get up and running first and then see where you stand. If you’re missing something start a new thread.

If I havent expressed enough already - youre a saint - I have looked everywhere for a solution to this to no avail.

Apologies yeah think I tend to try to be more tech than I am :) so little bit of knowledge being dangerous thing definitely applies to me Know enough to get by but hit a wall when comes to anything too technical.
Saying that your instructions are quite clear and really appreciate your help with this.

Didnt get a chance to try last night working late but will give it a go tonight

Device drivers I can cope with realise that 64bit drivers can be a pain in the arse - spoke to dell to try and get some drivers apparently they dont support 64 bit (nice but they sell it) - but they have some on their site - so hopefully those should work - saw that some people missing the smbus drivers so downloaded them as thought that might be causing the original problem.