Windows 7 Pro x64 install on VHD, error 0x80300024

Dear all,

My apologies for starting a new thread on this one, but I have searched both the forum and the internet high and low and cannot find a solution that works for my system.

I just bought my mother a new Toshiba laptop (Satellite C50-A-1DV), however as she has used Windows XP until now, she has (in my opinion somewhat validly) found Windows 8 too much of a culture shock and too user-unfriendly to get along with it. It’s just stressing her out.

Like it or not, Windows 8 does appear to be the direction operating systems will be going in, so ultimately she’d like to be able to access to Windows 8 so she can get used to it over time, however to me the logical answer for her was to install Windows 7 for her to use primarily in the beginning, as it has a very similar user interface to Windows XP (while the differences are generally welcome user-friendly improvements), and which would ease her into the new generation of operating systems, as it also shares many features with Windows 8. I therefore purchased a full DVD copy of Windows 7 Pro 64bit with a view to setting up a dual boot system.

Of course, I hadn’t considered the UEFI issue!

The computer has shipped with Windows 8, and is running a UEFI firmware, with the single Hard Disk Drive initialised to use the GBT format table. The Firmware does have a CSM toggle (and apparently I’m lucky in that regard as many of the satellites with earlier firmware versions did not have a toggle), but it only has 2 settings:

1. Full EUFI (what I understand is called “type 3” UEFI), or
2. EUFI off in full CSM legacy mode.

There is no third “Windows 7 friendly EUFI” mode (which I understand is called “type 2” UEFI), that has UEFI on with CSM on.

The result being, that I have made a 300GB NTFS formatted partition (using full format, not quick format) on the single HDD to install Windows 7, however if I boot up from the Windows 7 install disk (I’m using the DVD format as I understood digital downloads can cause issues with UEFI), with UEFI on, the install hangs at the "starting windows" screen. If I boot up from the Windows 7 install disk with CSM on, the Windows 7 install program begins, but it tells me that I can’t install on any of the partitions of the drive (including the dedicated partition I created) as they are in the GBT format.

It being a laptop, there is annoyingly no option of installing a second physical hard drive initialised with MBR to run Windows 7, although this would be a solution: it would be a slightly clumsy dual boot system as the operating system booted into would be decided by the position of the CSM toggle (OFF and it would use EUFI and automatically boot onto the GBT HDD and load Windows 8; ON and it would use CSM and automatically boot onto the MBR HDD and load Windows 7) and not a regular dual boot “black” selector screen; but it would at least work.

I would like, if at all possible, to avoid having to wipe the entire HDD and initialise it to MBR as this will destroy the recovery partitions and I may have to buy another copy of Windows 8, as I don’t believe my recovery media (even if I pay the extortionate £30 to Toshiba to buy a copy) will do a fresh install of Windows, just recover the computer to an image of how the computer was (drivers and bloatware and all) at the point of shipping.

Then it suddenly occurred to me: Windows 7 will boot off a virtual drive!

I therefore created a 250GB VHD in Windows 8, which was saved to the partition I had made to install Windows on (I did this to leave 50GB space on the partition, as I understand lack of expansion space can cause problems for a Windows 7 install on a VHD). I initialised the VHD to use the MBR partition table, created a 200GB partition (again, leaving 50GB free space on the VHD) and formatted the partition (using a full, not quick format) to NTFS.

I then booted to the Windows 7 install disk in CSM mode, hit Shift+F10, launched diskpart, selected the VHD I had made earlier in Windows 8, and attached it. The attachment was successful and I smiled to myself conceitedly, as I somewhat arrogantly assumed I had outsmarted the computer. I then ran the Windows install program and when it came to selecting disks I now had:

• Disk 0: Main GBT HDD with several partitions (including Windows 8 partition, the newly created Windows 7 partition, recovery partitions and those partitions Windows creates when installing in UEFI).
• Disk 2: The MBR virtual drive with the new partition and 50GB unallocated space.

Somewhat oddly there was no Disk 1 listed.

I selected the new partition on Disk 2, and finally the next button ceased being greyed out (as the drive was MBR and not GBT) and it allowed me to proceed, however I then hit the brick wall I can’t get passed: error 0x80300024.

I can’t understand why I’m getting the error – the computer doesn’t think about it and then bring it up, the error comes up immediately upon pressing next. I have tried deleting the VHD and creating a new one in Diskpart after booting onto the Windows 7 install disk, on the off-chance that Windows 7 installs are not compatible with VHDs created in Windows 8. I have tried installing onto an un-initialised VHD as well as one initialised with MBR. I have tried installing to the unallocated space on the VHD, and I have wiped all the partitions on the VHD, so it’s all unallocated space and tried installing to that. However, each time I get the same error: 0x80300024.

I don’t know what else to do. I know that when others have had this error with physical drives they get success by unplugging the other drives so that the drive being installed onto becomes drive 0. This obviously isn’t an option for me, as everything is on the same solitary drive.

I wondered if there is any other way of cloaking/hiding the other partitions/the main physical drive from the install program, but in such a way that I can access the VHD with diskpart?

I also wondered if there was any way of manually assigning my VHD to be Disk 0 for the purposes of the install program, and whether this would make any difference.

I’m tearing my hair out here! All I was attempting was to do a nice thing for my mother!! Why would the semi-conductor universe be so cruel to me?!?

If anybody can come up with a solution I would be massively grateful.

Thank you so much to everyone in advance for your time (if only for taking the time to read this lengthy post) – I also apologise for the size of this initial post: I wanted to provide as much detail as possible so that nobody wasted their time with a dead-end solution.

Many thanks again,

Kind regards,


Dav

Thanks Golden, thanks Ztruker. You're both very kind for getting back to me (and so quickly) on that. I'll try out start8 then.

Cheers,