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#1
Windows 7 only booting under specific conditions
Hi once again and thanks for the suggestions that helped me successfully install Windows 7. Now I'm having some strange issues with booting. I apologize for the tl;dr post that follows.
To explain a bit more: after getting the first install to finally complete, I had some issues getting the system to boot again after installing the motherboard drivers and making some changes with the video card. It was booting in safe mode, but not when I selected normal startup. System restore, rolling back drivers, and disabling startup processes did not fix the problem. So, I decided to reinstall Windows 7 because it seemed like a software issue that I wasn't able to fix on my own, and I had hardly done anything that I would feel sad losing to a clean install.
Once I reinstalled, I started having the same issues I had been before--Windows 7 not allowing me to complete the installation. I decided that perhaps my BIOS needed updating, since I had tried everything else that I have seen suggested on these forums. I made a bootable Flash drive with DOS on it and transfered the new BIOS drivers onto it, as per this German site (with help from Google translate). I configured the boot order in my BIOS like so:
- USB-FDD
- CDROM
- HDD
It is also relevant to mention that I left my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install disc in the CDROM. I also changed HPET support to "disabled" (I had done this before, but had reset the CMOS since then and so had to redo it. Thought that may have been the trick for a bit).
When I attempted to boot this way, nothing was any different. So, I figured USB-FDD wasn't the right choice to boot from my flash drive and I went back to the boot order. I changed it to this:
- USB-FDD
- USB-HDD
- CDROM
Totally removed the regular HDD from the listing because I wanted to force it to boot from the flash drive and update the BIOS. To my surprise, when I booted after making those changes, Windows 7 loaded! It even allowed me to complete the install! I was confused, but decided I wouldn't touch anything.
So, it was smooth sailing after that. Set everything up just the way I like it and left my computer on overnight to transfer some files over from my netbook. I had taken out the Windows install CD to install some other programs as well. At this point I had a second flash drive plugged in to copy files and my Seagate external USB drive for this same purpose. When I woke up this morning, I saw that Windows must have tried to restart overnight (perhaps Windows update forces this if you aren't around to delay) and was sitting at the "Loading Operating System..." screen that loads after the Gigabyte motherboard display.
I unplugged my other flash drive and the USB external drive in case it was trying to boot from them and getting stuck. Restarted, no such luck. I put the Windows 7 installation disc back in the disc drive. Then it started, proceeded to install Windows updates (with errors). Restarted into a disk check that fixed like 5 million things. When it restarted once more, it began powering off in the same fashion that it had previously. I unplugged the ethernet cable and now it's started successfully... but I'm concerned about turning it off. Obviously I don't want to have to make sure I have this very specific set of conditions every time I start Windows again.
Does anyone have any ideas about what could be causing this--or, better yet, why this flash drive thing is working at all? Any help would be very much appreciated. I will be tied up until about 5pm today so if I can't respond much before then, that's why. Thank you for any suggestions in advance!