Asus EEE 1015bx shuts down during clean Win 7 installation

Hi, Guys!

Here is my case. A friend asked me to help with an Asus EEE 1015bx he recently bought second hand on ebay.

It seemed to be stuck with viruses and adware - took ages to skip from folder to folder in the explorer. In the same time it worked pretty decently under Safe Mode.

So I decided to download all drivers from Asus support page and try with a clean Win 7 installation.
I used my original Win 7 CD which I imaged with ImgBurn 2.5.8.0 and then I created a bootable USB stick with Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool.

Reset it, F2 to enter BIOS and change boot order - set it to the USB device.
Installation started, when I reached the partitioning point, I deleted all previous partitions, then created and formated 2 new ones. Clicked next and Windows started copying and expanding files. At some point it just shut down. It does it over and over again at the same point, no error message.

Only thing I can think of is maybe I shouldn't have deleted all old partitions, that including the RECOVERY partition or system partition, or whatever that was installed originally.

Any ideas?

Confirm the ISO HASH and make sure you are formatting the stick correctly - from Step 1 of Clean Reinstall Windows 7. Most important is if you have an EFI BIOS then the stick must be specially formatted as specified and booted as an EFI flash device.

Set the hard drive first to boot in BIOS, then trigger the stick using the one-time BIOS Boot menu key.

Other than bad media, the PC may be shutting down due to overheating so boot into BIOS setup to check the temps and shutdown parameters.

Install the licensed version on the COA sticker affixed to the PC, following Clean Reinstall Windows 7 which always results in a perfect install and stays that way exactly as long as you stick with those steps. Pay special attention to the steps in red about how drivers are handled as you seem to be under the impression this is XP by downloading a bunch of drivers that Win7 may not want. You only might need the network driver to get online to get all of your updates done.

OliTheTrueOne, You are right about the Win 7 version - the sticker on the laptop says Win 7 Starter.

gregrocker, the ASUS Screen saver which appears upon pushing the power button says "PRESS F2 TO ETER EFI BIOS SYSTEM". I assume we are talking EFI.
Next I follow How To Use UltraISO Software To Create Bootable USB Flash Drive

Strangely, BIOS recognizes the usb stick as UEFI. And of course I end up in the same situation.
Could that be the reason? I mean is there a way to double make sure that I really format the stick in EFI?

Oh, and one more thing. While in BIOS, I noticed the laptop would also shut down on its own...It's getting complicated, but somehow I feel like we're talking about the right formattig of the usb stick, so any further advise here?

Regards

You missed that an EFI BIOS flash stick must be formatted using only Option One of UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows.

Step 1
Find the right Windows 7 .iso


Microsoft has taken down the Digital River ISO download servers and are only providing ISO's to retail customers. This leaves those who bought a PC with Win7 at the mercy of OEM Tech Support who except for Dell rarely will provide clean Reinstallation media, to borrow a retail copy, or search for a torrent download which can be risky if not checked for add-ins.

If you have a retail copy of Windows 7, then you could try to download an ISO directly from Microsoft at the link below.

Microsoft Software Recovery

You can borrow a friend's disk to reinstall, even extract the ISO image file using ImgBurn and then burn a new DVD using ImgBurn at 4x speed, write ISO to 4gb+ flash stick using UltraISO Software To Create Bootable USB Flash Drive, or for UEFI installs use Option One of UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows

If you are forced to download the ISO from a torrent you can compare the SHA1 signature available freely on the MSDN Downloads page "Details" links, using a checker like HashTab which adds a HASH calculator to the ISO file Properties tabs. Having these sums match assures that nothing was added to the file.

If your licensed version is unavailable you can unlock all versions in any ISO using ei.cfg removal tool or by deleting ei.cfg from Sources folder on bootable flash stick.

I would use 64-bit for 4gb or more RAM, 32-bit (x86) for 3gb or less RAM.

You can slipstream the latest Updates into the installer ISO to save at least an hour's Updating after install using Update 7 installation media. However it may take an hour to do this so consider how much you want this.

Burn ISO to DVD or to USB flash stick (minimum size of 4GB required) using Windows 7 USB-DVD Download Tool which is sometimes fussy about the ISO, or to DVD using ImgBurn at 4x speed, to flash stick using UltraISO Software To Create Bootable USB Flash Drive.

For UEFI installs format flash stick with Option One of UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows making sure the settings shown in picture don't jump around after adding the ISO. You have a UEFI install if Disk Management shows an EFI System partition on the hard drive. Remember that the stick needs to be booted as a UEFI device.

gregrocker, I follow the Option 1 guide and once I hit the "START" button in Rufus, I get the error message saying "When using UEFI Target type, only EFI Bootable ISO images are supported. Please select an EFI bootable ISO or set the target type to BIOS".

Sounds like the ISO image I am trying to use is not EFI bootable. However it does have a folder string efi/microsoft/boot/fonts. In that folder there are various .tttf files.

So does that make the ISO imsge efi bootable? If not:
-should i use other Rufus settings?
-how to make an efi bootable image?

Regards

Oh, and further question, now that I continue to dig into the BIOS/UEFI topic.

If I understand correct Win 7 32 bit does not support UEFI. So do I overcome this one as well?

Thanks for continuing support so far, gregrocker.

No success so far, but at least by now I am sure this is something to do with the proper formatting of the stick.

Here is the problem - I searched and searched over and over - my UEFI BIOS has no such place where I can switch to legacy.
It's very strange because when in BIOS on the bottom it says AMERICAN MEGATRENDS version 2.01.1204. When I google this BIOS there are manuals for this BIOS which have this option in the BOOT menu and I don't have it

So I am now in a vicious circle:
Win 7 32 bit must be formatted as legacy BIOS. However I can switch to legacy mode in BIOS
I also tried the 64 bit Win (not really sure if it is supported, certainly it's not on ASUS support page, but I gave it a try)...I ended up with blue error screens...

So, any ideas now?