New Hard Drive -- Windows 7 Installation Hangs

Hello everyone,

Just bought a new hard drive due to my old one was failing. This is the same exact hard drive I had.

Whenever I try installing windows 7, it "completes", then the screen blinks skips, and skips the "Create a user account" and just hangs at "Completing Installation".

I thought I would give it a try and disable my gfx driver just to see if that would work.

Having a hard time deciphering what the problem could be.

Just looking for any possible solutions I could try.

Pretty much a stock Dell xps 8100 with a radeon 6970 I added onto it last year. The hard drive failure occured out of no where.

Appreciate it and thank you in advance.

I ran several diagnostic tests with no errors found.

More details needed:

Is your installation disc burned? OEM? Retail? Borrowed? Or?

What diagnostics tests did you run?

Disc is OEM

Ran Memory Diagnostics, startup repair, and diagnostics from boot options (F12)

I can see the hard drive in the BIOS.

Boot sequence is as follows:
CD
Hard drive

I'd run Memtest86+ as a RAM test, for at least 5 passes. It's a better test than the one built into Windows. It might take overnight to finish.

Have you tried installing with just a single RAM stick---in various slots?

I'd run the drive manufacturer's disk utility on the hard drive.

I'd leave only the bare minimum devices connected when I made an install attempt---keyboard, mouse, monitor. No USB stuff or printers, etc.

Has this hard drive ever had anything of any type on it?

Is your OEM disc something supplied by Dell or purchased elsewhere?

ignatzatsonic said:

I'd run Memtest86+ as a RAM test, for at least 5 passes. It's a better test than the one built into Windows. It might take overnight to finish.

Have you tried installing with just a single RAM stick---in various slots?I'll try this

I'd run the drive manufacturer's disk utility on the hard drive.

I'd leave only the bare minimum devices connected when I made an install attempt---keyboard, mouse, monitor. No USB stuff or printers, etc. Did this

Has this hard drive ever had anything of any type on it? No, brand new -- bought it last night

Is your OEM disc something supplied by Dell or purchased elsewhere?From Dell -- Used this 2 days ago on another computer, worked perfect

No idea why/how this could of happened to a 2 year old computer that has had absolutely no problems.

I'd do the Memtest86+ and the hard drive maker's disk utility.

Even if you get it installed, you will likely have activation issues if the OEM product key has already been used on this other PC you mention.

If a ram stick (or more) is broken, would that significantly slow down your computer?

Before this started happening my computer was moving maybe half its normal speed. Loading extremely slow.

CTGallD said:

If a ram stick (or more) is broken, would that significantly slow down your computer?

Before this started happening my computer was moving maybe half its normal speed. Loading extremely slow.

Yes, if the remaining sticks dropped the total usable memory to a low level---say to 1 GB or less.

If you have at least 2 GB of good RAM, I'd expect Windows 7 to perform pretty well--unless you have an antique CPU.

Edit: I actually think I solved it.

I woke up this morning and checked the install (Left it at the hanging part before I went to sleep).

I received the error "Windows Setup could not configure Windows on this computer’s hardware". I didn't receive this error yesterday.

I googled it and the fix is to update the "Intel RST" drivers and "Load Drivers" when you choose where to install Windows 7 ("Load Drivers"). Basically hard drive disk drivers?

Link to solution:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2466753

I followed method one, install the drivers here: http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-031502.htm

Everything seems to be going good!

I appreciate your help ignatzatsonic!

For future reference, this was with the Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM hard drive.