Windows 7 freezes before completing installation

SUMMARY: Windows 7100 x64 installation freezes on splash/loading screen during the first restart after the last step of installation.

Let me start by saying this all started 4 days ago when Windows 7 Ultimate build 7068 x64 randomly started refusing to let my router assign my machine an IP address. It was a hard-line connection and had been working fine for weeks. No hardware changes, no software changes, no network changes, and poof--no connectivity. Other machines and OS's connected to it fine, and my machine connected to OTHER networks fine. Two days of router hard resets and windows registry hacks yielded absolutely no progress, so I arrived at a reinstallation of Windows.

I decided that since I was going to lose all data anyhow, I would take that opportunity to update the firmware on my SSD--which, if you've never heard of this process-- it is no small feat. After consulting with 4 IT professionals at work, whoring out 3 different PC's, obtaining a mild concussion, and an act of congress, I finally got a formatted, blank SSD with updated firmware ready to re-install windows to.

I created a 7100 x64 installation disc using Microsoft's ISO and booted from it. Installation went smoothly all the way up to the very last step (when the screen resolution changes from default low-res to OS-worthy normal resolution) and then setup says it needs to restart one last time. It appears as though this time when it restarts, it actually boots from the hard drive, rather than the installation program. I got the animated windows icon with the black back drop, and then before the OS pops up it just hangs and freezes.

No keyboard input is responsive (ctl + alt + delete doesn't work) once it freezes, and a "repair installation" just yields a "Windows cannot repair this installation" message. I tried everything I can think of and there is no way to get past it. Botting it in safe mode just says "Windows cannot boot in safe mode because setup needs to complete first."

For sanity's sake, I wiped the disc again and installed XP x64 and it installed lickedy-split just fine. I don't understand though, because I was running build 7068 no problems beforehand, and it wasn't hard to install at all.

My head eh splode.

I did boot logging to see if anyone could make sense of this. I'll wipe the partition, try installing again, and load some of these drivers beforehand, but there are still some .SYS ones on here I'm not familiar with. I took out redundant failures and all the successful loads:

Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Version 6.1 (Build 7100)
8 6 2009 07:01:49.610
Did not load driver @hal.inf,%acpi_amd64.devicedesc%;ACPI x64-based PC
Did not load driver @cpu.inf,%intelppm.devicedesc%;Intel Processor
Did not load driver @nv_lh.inf,%nvidia_gt200.dev_05e2.1%;NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM v1.1)
Did not load driver cdrom.SYS
Did not load driver RDPCDD.SYS
Did not load driver RDPREFMP.SYS
Did not load driver Wanarpv6.SYS
Did not load driver TermDD.SYS
Did not load driver mssmbios.SYS
Did not load driver discache.SYS
Did not load driver blbdrive.SYS
Did not load driver @hdaudio.inf,%hdaudiofunctiondriver.generic.devicedesc%;High Definition Audio Device
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS

Any ideas?

chev65 said:

The few freezing installation problems I've had with Windows 7 were fixed just by clearing the cmos and restting everything back to how it was in bios. It works everytime. You really should consider using one of the newer builds.

Obvious as that may have seemed I hadn't thought of that, I'm running an overclocked CPU and RAM, I'll give it a shot and report back.

Also though, how do I get a hold of one of the newer builds?

foogama said:

SUMMARY: Windows 7100 x64 installation freezes on splash/loading screen during the first restart after the last step of installation.

GOGO posted a similar problem not to long ago here:

The issue was evidently with the video card (two different cards). If you have access to some different video cards you might be able to get a working install and then update the drivers to the video card of your choice?

Solved this and wanted to update in case anyone else was having similar problems.

I ended up getting a hold of the RTM .iso and that installed like a charm (I had been using build 7068). I can't say if it was that or the CMOS clear that did it though since I was lazy and did them both at the same time. My intuition tells me it was the new build though.

Video card I'm not entirely convinced was the problem, although I suppose it's possible; but if anyone has the same problem, I reccommend wiping and installing fresh with the RTM build. I can now dual-boot with XP x64 and 7 RTM x64 flawlessly.