Complicated Situation?

Thank you, iseeuu and wallyinnc!

I don't know why it's doing what it's doing, but I went into BIOS to tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive and it seems to be doing just that, but no installation screen comes up -- just the screen with the two bootable OS's that iseeuu attached earlier.

I went back just a few minutes ago to see my purchase in the Microsoft Store and I realized that I hadn't changed my download option from the default option to the 32-bit option. So do I need to re-download Windows 7 and re-burn the DVD and see if the installation screen pops up then?

Thank you for your patience, BTW. :) You guys have been more than helpful and educational.

writingnerdgirl said:

Thank you, iseeuu and wallyinnc!

I don't know why it's doing what it's doing, but I went into BIOS to tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive and it seems to be doing just that, but no installation screen comes up -- just the screen with the two bootable OS's that iseeuu attached earlier.

I went back just a few minutes ago to see my purchase in the Microsoft Store and I realized that I hadn't changed my download option from the default option to the 32-bit option. So do I need to re-download Windows 7 and re-burn the DVD and see if the installation screen pops up then?

Thank you for your patience, BTW. :) You guys have been more than helpful and educational.

Before the "Boot Menu" appears, you should see a little line of text saying: "Press any key to boot from CD"? If you do not "press any key" the bios will ignore the DVD and continue to the boot menu.

Try again and see if you get that message ...

iseeuu said:

writingnerdgirl said:

Thank you, iseeuu and wallyinnc!

I don't know why it's doing what it's doing, but I went into BIOS to tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive and it seems to be doing just that, but no installation screen comes up -- just the screen with the two bootable OS's that iseeuu attached earlier.

I went back just a few minutes ago to see my purchase in the Microsoft Store and I realized that I hadn't changed my download option from the default option to the 32-bit option. So do I need to re-download Windows 7 and re-burn the DVD and see if the installation screen pops up then?

Thank you for your patience, BTW. :) You guys have been more than helpful and educational.

Before the "Boot Menu" appears, you should see a little line of text saying: "Press any key to boot from CD"? If you do not "press any key" the bios will ignore the DVD and continue to the boot menu.

Try again and see if you get that message ...

I wish I was seeing that, but I'm not. All I'm seeing is the Dell logo along with F2=Setup and F=12 Boot Menu. I tried both of those options and made sure that the first boot option was from the CD/DVD drive, but the result was the same: it went back to the "Boot into earlier system, Boot into Windows 7" menu.

This may be an issue with the computer and not with the software?

writingnerdgirl said:

iseeuu said:

writingnerdgirl said:

Thank you, iseeuu and wallyinnc!

I don't know why it's doing what it's doing, but I went into BIOS to tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive and it seems to be doing just that, but no installation screen comes up -- just the screen with the two bootable OS's that iseeuu attached earlier.

I went back just a few minutes ago to see my purchase in the Microsoft Store and I realized that I hadn't changed my download option from the default option to the 32-bit option. So do I need to re-download Windows 7 and re-burn the DVD and see if the installation screen pops up then?

Thank you for your patience, BTW. :) You guys have been more than helpful and educational.

Before the "Boot Menu" appears, you should see a little line of text saying: "Press any key to boot from CD"? If you do not "press any key" the bios will ignore the DVD and continue to the boot menu.

Try again and see if you get that message ...

I wish I was seeing that, but I'm not. All I'm seeing is the Dell logo along with F2=Setup and F=12 Boot Menu. I tried both of those options and made sure that the first boot option was from the CD/DVD drive, but the result was the same: it went back to the "Boot into earlier system, Boot into Windows 7" menu.

This may be an issue with the computer and not with the software?

Do you have any other bootable CD DVD? Can you test one of them?

It is possible the DVD is not bootable. Windows 7RC will burn the iso file and make it bootable. Just right click on the iso file and select "Burn Disk Image"



If a second burn does not produce a bootable DVD, you may have to download the iso file from MS again?

So you tried the Boot menu option and told it to boot from CD/DVD drive and it still wouldn't boot?

Let's Verify your DVD is bootable using ImgBurn. Load the ISO in using the file tab, then look for the word "bootable" in text at left. If it's not bootable you'll need to download the ISO again.

Next insert DVD and Verify ISO against DVD.

If necessary burn another DVD at 4x speed with Verify.

Dear 7 Forum friends,

I'm very sorry that I haven't returned to this thread sooner but I'm very grateful all the invaluable help you've given me. :)

What happened was this: after trying to re-burn the DVD three times, I *gave up* and ordered the DVD from MS. I ended up deleting the Windows 7 RC partition and installing the Windows 7 Upgrade over XP, which is what I wanted to do after I sat down and thought about it.

Thank you again for your patience and kindness. Now on to find some drivers!

Jonathan_King said:

Glad to hear it's working. :)

What drivers do you need? Anything I can find for you?

Thank you, but after I started reading some articles on the matter, I quickly realized I was fairly far out of my depth. I've since handed the computer to my Dad who is a software engineer (in retrospect, that may have been better if I hadn't been so stubborn about doing it myself ).

Thank you again, you have been phenomenally patient throughout my wranglings. :)