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Windows 7 Ultimate x64 clean install issues.
Hello everyone,
Today I decided to help my Brother in law by upgrading his HP Pavillion Entertainment Notebook from Vista Ultimate x64 to 7 Ultimate by means of a clean install as he didn't want most of the junk on the HDD.
I've done many, many Windows installs in my life and haven't encountered any problems that I couldn't work out quite quickly, though today has been a real challenge!
I'll describe the situation below;
1) As any HP user would know the HDDs are often partitioned in an irritating fashion. In the Windows installer I formatted the partitions and was left with two 150gig partitions. There was an original system partition for Vista OS, but I deleted it as it wasn't large enough for the Windows 7 install.
2) Fist problem encountered was that the unpacking of files was interrupted due to 'corrupt files'. I know this isn't the case as the disk is fine, I checked it on another PC to be sure. Probably a dodgy DVD drive in the old notebook. I did a workaround by installing from an external hdd and that went fine. Here's where things get strange...
3) On restart after installation the notebook booted from the external hdd again and wanted to do another install... I figured it was a boot order issue and changed the boot order in bios accordingly (HDD first etc.)
4) On restart there is a report of OS missing or not found...
5) Tried a re-install, I noticed however when selecting the HDD for install, Disk 0 partition 1 has a message at the bottom of the screen saying it can't support an install due to bios related problems. I didn't write the exact message down, something like "Windows cannot be installed to this device. The hardware prossibly does not support the reboot on this device. Make sure that the devicecontroller in the BIOS menu of the computer is enabled". Disk 1 was fine though, so I installed to that drive. No cigar. Still has missing OS error, or err1err3...
Have since tried various bootable CDs for formatting and editing partitions and it hasn't made a difference. Tried fixmbr as a long shot.
The problem is that the bios on this notebook is so crummy, it only lists boot order, it doesn't allow any more indepth analysis of the HDD to my knowledge... Uses phoenixbios.
So have I got a corrupt drive on my hands? Any workarounds for the crummy bios? Is this a common problem?
I'm fairly sure the notebook only has one physical drive, it's just split into these two partitions that I can't get rid of. As mentioned '0' seems unable to accept a Windows 7 install for some reason and I get the feeling that's where bios is looking.
HELP!!!