Please Offer Advice on Installation

[garysgold]

I'm back. In Vistax64SP2.

I haven't run into anything major. Been a few problems with drivers, but most get fixed. Really only one way to find out for sure. You shouldn't have any major problems since your system is relatively new. Most people here think this is the best OS Microsoft has ever built.

Have fun.

Gary

 

[yaco78]

Congrats... How is Vista SP2? I'm still on SP1... am I supposed to upgrade?

 

[garysgold]

Running great here. Still haven't got it all set up or programs installed though. From what I've heard it is faster and better, so going to give it a bit of a workout. So far I would recommend it.

Gary

 

[yaco78]

Ahh, so close yet so far. The backup which took a good 8 hours finished, so I went ahead to use the built-in partition software with Vista, but it's telling me that I only have about 5gb available to shrink even though there's 123gb free. And I know that this is usable space because I've recently filled it all the way with videos and had no problem. I then proceeded to download Easeus Partition Master as mentioned earlier, but it told me I can't run it on 64-bit. So now I'm surfing the net for a different program. I've vowed not to sleep until I see Windows 7 boot up on my laptop On the other hand, while mingling around in the Disk Management under the control panel, I noticed that the D: drive actually had the name of the inserted CD in it! This marks the first time my computer has actually read a CD that I've put into it. I found it funny how I never noticed this defect until about 3 months after purchasing my computer. Shows how even CD's are going out of date! Anyways, back to my quest. I'll post some results when they come in

 

[antalgebra]

Ok, You've asked ALOTTA questions here, I'll try to get to all of them, let me know if I missed any:

First, I want to recommend FRESH install. upgrading, you risk losing all your Vista stuff, and will be subject to the terms of the RC (whether or not M$ allows you to UPG to final after this year's up) You will NOT have an oppertunity to 'downgrade' back to vista, unless you've straight imaged your hard drive. (restore images... maybe)

Fresh installing windows, your given a very easy-to-understand install utility that comes on the ISO disc. after creating a seperate partition (30+gig, although I recommend cutting your drive in half) you really shouldn't re-partition very often, try to do this only once, and leave the partition in place, even if you decide to un-install later. After setting up a different partition, and installing Win7, which is a painless process, the build will automatically set up dual-booting for your Win7 and Vista partitions.

Thumb drive method is the absolute best method for installing Win7. try that first. Your second option is DVD-RW's, and lastly the DVD-R. Although you might have to try a couple times if your using the DVD-R's. Heck, you might even have to download it more than once.... just a heads-up. You can NOT mount an image for win7 as far as I'm aware.

all Data will be accessable from either partition, although if the data is under a User that has a password, you will have to type it in. while data is cross-readable, all OS-dependant (excluding CMD-based programs that doesen't rely on the OS) Programs will have to be re-installed. Only Data-files can be shared, such as music, movies, documents, saved games etc.

16GB is the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM to install. Dont do this. you'll have a hard time expanding the partition later, try to partition only once. if your planning on just deleting, and not using win7, go ahead and give it 30GB. if you would like to spend some time on it, just cut your disc in half.

Let me know if I missed anything...

-D

 

[yaco78]

Have any of you used EASEUS to do the partition before? I set it up to do 2 tasks.. First downsize the C drive from about 300gb to 265gb, and then take the free 35gb and form a W: drive which I put in as a primary drive with the name Win7. I restarted my machine and the process began.. It took well over an hour to reach 99% on the shrinking step alone, and has now been stuck at 99% for about 20 minutes. The current operation bar has also been stuck at 94% and the overall progress stuck at 47%. I do see the dots blinking and some occassional flickering, so it looks like the program is doing something, but I'm starting to get nervous. Is this normal for it to take so long? What can I do if this really did freeze up? I'm typing this on my blackberry as I am now computerless for the time being. Ahh! Why isn't it making progress

 

[antalgebra]

Have any of you used EASEUS to do the partition before? I set it up to do 2 tasks.. First downsize the C drive from about 300gb to 265gb, and then take the free 35gb and form a W: drive which I put in as a primary drive with the name Win7. I restarted my machine and the process began.. It took well over an hour to reach 99% on the shrinking step alone, and has now been stuck at 99% for about 20 minutes. The current operation bar has also been stuck at 94% and the overall progress stuck at 47%. I do see the dots blinking and some occassional flickering, so it looks like the program is doing something, but I'm starting to get nervous. Is this normal for it to take so long? What can I do if this really did freeze up? I'm typing this on my blackberry as I am now computerless for the time being. Ahh! Why isn't it making progress

Leave your PC on overnight, see if it will recover. other than that, your probably ganna lose alot of data, and possibly your hard disk.

You shouldn't perform more than 5-10 partition changes in a hard disk's LIFETIME. you should decide how you want the disk while it's completely clean, section off the disk, and call it good. resizing so many times will kill it.

I hope it recovers... you should let win7 do your partition editing if you can get back from it.

-D

 

[yaco78]

Ok update, after another 20-30 minutes it finished the last percent, then immediately zipped through the creation of the W drive, saying it was successful. Then windows started to boot up and I was taken to a screen saying how windows failed to start due to a hardware failure. It is not attempting repairs, I have no idea what's going to happen now... And in response to the last comment, this is the first partition that has been done. My machine came with vista and I attempted to create this to dual run W7. I don't know what to do. All I see is a startup repair window with a blue line that keeps scrolling by showing that its attempting some kind of repair I don't know how to install a new hard drive

 

[yaco78]

Also, the reason I didn't use the vista partitioning program was because it said I only had like 5gb free when really there were over 120 free. Could this have been part of the problem?

 

[yaco78]

More bad news.. The repair thing failed. I opened the diagnosis and this is what it said at the bottom

Root cause found:
Unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem.

Repair action: system files integrity check and repair
Result: failed. Error code =0x490

....Update...
As I was typing that, I chose to restart again instead of recover, and a message came up from the easeus program saying batch files successfully updated! And now it just booted up, although it wants me to reset again.. One min. Well the drive is there, and my computer is in tact.. But damn that was scary! Well time for the installation hopefully it will go a little smoother than the partition. I hate this stuff

 

[garysgold]

The problem you were having with Vista's disk manager and with the partitioning software taking so long is that Vista may write the pagefile or index file toward the end of the partition to help avoid fragmentation. Disk manager can't move files so it could only shrink to the end of that file, the partitioning software moved the file and that took all the time. Hahaaa, I remember the first time I did a dual boot it was scary for me too.

 

[NoN]

More bad news.. The repair thing failed. I opened the diagnosis and this is what it said at the bottom

Root cause found:
Unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem.

Repair action: system files integrity check and repair
Result: failed. Error code =0x490

....Update...
As I was typing that, I chose to restart again instead of recover, and a message came up from the easeus program saying batch files successfully updated! And now it just booted up, although it wants me to reset again.. One min. Well the drive is there, and my computer is in tact.. But damn that was scary! Well time for the installation hopefully it will go a little smoother than the partition. I hate this stuff

You're on the right way yaco78,

Now your drive W: is ready.

You just have to put your DVD or flash drive and reboot, follow intructions for the install. Choose your new W: (35Gb) drive and everything will go smooth.

 

[yaco78]

I got W7 running

And it asked me if I wanted to boot in W7 or Vista upon startup, perfect! My initial impression is that it is beautiful. One thing that really stood out was how the top menu bar color still matches your Aero theme even when maximized. This always bothered me so much in Vista. I'm going to have so much fun playing around on this. And then I'm going to have to deal with the painstaking task of reinstalling all my software, but I definitely feel liberated now and I thank everyone so much who has given me the confidence and knowledge needed to pull it off. I had never partitioned a hard drive or installed an OS before, and without this forum, that would probably still be true!

 

[garysgold]

Good show. Glad everything went well. Just one more thing. If you ever want to make Vista the default boot option, type msconfig in the start menu search bar and hit enter. On the boot tab, select the OS you want to be default and hit the set as default button.

Don't forget to check the tutorials. Lots of great info there.

Enjoy.

Gary

 

[yaco78]

Thanks a lot Gary! Although I must say I have no intentions of ever starting up Vista again so long as W7 doesn't come across any functionality problems. I also just tested for my new windows experience rating- processor went up from 4.9 to 5.0, RAM up from 4.6 to 5.0, Graphics remained the same at 3.5, Gaming Graphics went up from 3.5 to 4.9 (wahoo!), and hard disk went up from 5.5 to 5.6. Not bad considering all I did was add new features and a new visual which I'm officially obsessed with and this is coming from a guy who was very satisfied with his Vista experience despite negative public reception. I'll definitely be getting the full version when it comes out. Hopefully my school will make it available on a CD to students for $20 like they do with Vista Home Ultimate

 

[garysgold]

Glad your enjoying it. I wouldn't recommend getting rid of Vista just yet. 7 is still in test mode, although not for much longer, and having Vista as a life line is comforting, even if you don't use it. I too liked Vista. Don't put too much into the WEI scores. It nice that they went up and that may partly be due to a better graphics driver and W7's better handling of ram.

Gary

 

[yaco78]

I know the WEI is pretty meaningless, but since I have no software now I thought it would be fun to compare. And don't worry, I would not get rid of Vista until I had a retail copy of W7 running and tested. Anyways, I think it's time for me to move out of this thread and start talking about some more interesting topics than the installation/set-up. In particular I think it's time for some customization =D

 

[oldewolfe]

Silly Question about WinRAR... I've been tryin' to Set Up a Dual Boot Win7x86-Win7x64 configuration, but I've been Stonewalled by the Black Wall...

Could this be what I've been Missin'...?????

I've Burned Multiple Disk's and I've been gettin' the same Results... Black Screen...

i:

2:

Select CD Boot Type:

Pushing 1 just boots Win7x86 while pushing 2 tells me...

Non System Disk or Disk Error

Replace & Press any key to Continue...

This just boots Win7x86 also...

Next Question... Installing x64 in my 2nd Partition, will I need x86 WinRAR (Since I'll be doing it from an x86 Environment-?), or x64 WinRAR (Since that's what the Programs Written in)...???

 

[yaco78]

I'm not sure why you are getting errors, but as far as WinRAR, I don't think it matters at all because you only need to run it on the x86. It's only purpose is to extract the files from the .iso image so that you can run the setup.exe without having to burn it. Once the extraction has been done, which I did onto my desktop in Vista, all I did was double click on setup and the rest worked by itself. There was no need to insert a dvd or use WinRAR at any point after that, just follow the installation process. After selecting to install on the x64 partition, it now asks upon startup which OS I'd like to boot in. So just try using the extraction method and maybe that will help you since the DVD doesn't seem to be working out. I believe this extraction can also be done with simple iso programs like MagicISO, Daemon Tools, or PowerISO. Well, that's what worked for me, and since I'm typing this on W7 x64 I either got lucky or the method should work for you too.

 

[The Sly Assassin]

oldewolfe, Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies, have a look at that, i think this may solve your problem, if you need help using it, just PM me and i will gladly walk you through.