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Installing Win7 OEM on second HD
Hi guys,
First of all, I'd like to thank you for all the help - I've been using these forums for the past few days and it's been really helpful.
I've tried looking everywhere for ways to fix my problem, but now I'm about to give up or try something drastic. I thought I should ask you first if you have any good advice to give me.
Here's the situation:
- I bought a brand new computer WITHOUT HDs, as I planned to use my own old HDs (1 Seagate Barracuda 160GB and 1 Seagate 80GB).
- The 80GB (heretofore named BBSG) used to be the system/boot HD for XP.
- The 160GB (heretofore named BBSB) was used for backups and just a repository for files.
- I bought Win7 Home Basic OEM (64 bit, I assume) alongside the new computer. I have also paid the store to install everything.
- The store technicians failed to install everything as planned. They've only managed to deliver the computer with Win7 installed on BBSG. BBSB stood for a month on the store for the technicians to make it work.
- As it took too long, I thought I could do a better job than those technicians. I brought BBSB home and decided to do it myself.
- The computer was working fine with only BBSG w/ Win7 installed.
- When I first connected BBSB, what happened was the same thing the technicians reported: Win7 wouldn't load or recognize the new HD (BBSB), although the Asus BIOS would see the drive fine.
- After some headaches, I solved the problem. Have in mind both HDs are IDE. As modern motherboards only have 1 IDE slot, they're connected on the same flat cable.
- I don't think this is relevant, but BBSB is the slave and BBSG is the master. Both are jumpered accordingly.
- The solution for this was quite simple. I told the BIOS to not install/recognize the drive. Proceed to boot and voilą, Win7 recognizes the new hardware and installs it automatically.
- System got a bit slow after that. Fearing the worst, I've moved all my files from BBSB to my Mac through the home network.
- Now I got green light to wipe off completely BBSB. Please note BBSG had been formatted prior to having Win7 installed by the technicians at the store.
- Full format (writing zeroes) takes ridiculously too long. "Clean all" too. After letting it sit there for over 18 hours, I decided to skip it.
- I "clean"ed BBSB then used quick format. In order to prevent future headaches, I decided to create two partitions. One primary with about 100GB, one extended with the remainder.
Now what I want to do is install Win7 into BBSB, so I can later format BBSG and use it as a backup drive. The reason for this is... I reckon IDE HDs are already way too slow for my machine, so I better have Win7 running on the fastest, newer HD (BBSB).
Here's where I'm stuck:
- My Win7 OPK disc won't boot to whatever the Win7 Install Setup program might look like (I never got to see it).
- It does says "Windows is loading files..." then "Starting up Windows", then it boots to a Command Line, runs 'wpeinit' then sits there placidly on X:\windows\system32\.
- Funny thing is... When I first tried booting from DVD, both HDs were connected - sometimes I had them both recognized by the BIOS, sometimes only one of them. I thought this weird behavior was OK, as I have read somewhere here that the Win7 boot acts funny whenever you have two HDs connected, specially when they're sharing the same IDE flatcable.
- So I physically disconnected BBSG and booted from the DVD, thus there was no way the already-installed Win7 could interfere in the process.
- Still the same. I can see all drives (two partitions in one HD, one system-partition in another, one DVD drive) and access them freely, manipulate with DiskPart or whatever. I can even try to run StartCD. I'm then taken to the Win7 OPK thingy, but when I click on Install OPK it gives me a msiexec.exe /l not found.
- Oh, I have also tried things like Win7 Restore & Backup, Saving an Image File and Win7 Easy Transfer (which was named ironically, I suppose). Seriously though, once Win7 is properly installed on BBSB, I hope I can use EasyTransfer to have the OS exactly as it is now on BBSG.
Now that I'm describing to you the problem so thoroughly, I'm a bit more willing to concede that the DVD has a problem, so I'm willing to give it a try making a bootable USB stick. FYI, the DVD is on an external DVD reader, which otherwise seems to be working quite alright.
But anyways, I hope you can shed some light on something I might eventually be doing wrong. Also, if you have any easier way to accomplish what I want, I'd be delighted.
So for a quick summing up of what I'm asking and what I have available.
1 Internal IDE HD running Win7
1 wiped-off Internal IDE HD, hoping to one day become Win7
1 Win7 OEM DVD, not helping much right now
Several USB ports waiting for a bootable USB stick on my next test
A functioning home network with a variety of other computers and operational systems, including my Macbook hooked with an external drive
1 External DVD reader (i.e. no internal DVD reader, after all it's 2011)
Oh, and I'd love to avoid touching anything else inside the computer besides the HDs. What I mean by that is, please only give me the suggestion to remove a RAM stick if necessary. I have 2 2GB sticks by the way.
Well, let's see if the bootable USB thing will work. I get back to you soon.