It's a scam, or worse, a botnet building scheme.
We have had a least 6 calls (from some subcontinental location) claiming that my friend's PC is infected.
They also claimed that his PC contacted MS and that is the reason for their call (i.e. they will fix his PC for a small fee).
How do I know it's a scam?
My friend uses Arch Linux and hasn't used Windows for about 12 years.
That's a pretty weird phone call. I've heard of similar phishing scams, but not when the caller has your info. It sounds like you might be having an update automatically installing which is causing the problem. I would delete all partitions, install Win 7 (make a quick image if you can), then manually install a few updates at a time.
Set Automatic Updates to notify you, but not install automatically. You may have the option set to offer additional updates the same way you receive MS updates. If those are on automatic, they may be installing a device driver that is crashing your system. If you can get a full install working, make a system image of the drive and save it to an external.
Appreciate the reply gregrocker. Gotten worse; Wiped HDD clean, single partition unallocated (1397.3 GB) with "!Unable to install to selected location. Error 0x80300001." Message goes on to say "This puter's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk's controller is enabled in the BIOS menu." Feel like I'm going straight backwards.
Also,am in the process of downloading the ISO file and will give go by instructions you passed along. Nothing to lose except more time.
Thanks again, will let you know what happens.
Try creating a smaller 100gb install partition for install.
Reset the BIOS to defaults. Check in BIOS if EFI is enabled. Set SATA controller to AHCI.
Unplug all other HD's and peripherals to try install.
If this is an EFI mobo you'll need to install 64 bit following these steps: UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Forums
You might give these ideas a whirl.
"Windows is unable to install to the selected location. Error: 0x80300001" Can anyone elaborate?
The phone caller may go on to try and get you to install Team Viewer or some other remote access app to "scan" your system. they ask for $40-$100 for their "service" while likely stealing any personal data they can find.
Here's a thread on it: Teamviewer scam - beware
Last edited by Britton30; 19 Feb 2012 at 22:29. Reason: add link
Did you use the disk manufacturer's utility to wipe the drive? Did you format the MBR area?Appreciate the reply gregrocker. Gotten worse; Wiped HDD clean, single partition unallocated (1397.3 GB) with "!Unable to install to selected location. Error 0x80300001." Message goes on to say "This puter's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk's controller is enabled in the BIOS menu." Feel like I'm going straight backwards.
Also,am in the process of downloading the ISO file and will give go by instructions you passed along. Nothing to lose except more time.
Thanks again, will let you know what happens.
Regards,
GEWB
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