Cannot boot upgrade CD

[Snadbad]

Hello everybody, this may come as a stupid question, but I'm really at nerve's end here. My computer went to hell a few days ago, and I had the 7 upgrade laying around, I just never actually used it. So, I burned the ISO and put it in. I tried a few times, but to no avail, my computer didn't boot it. I thought hmm, it must be my BIOS, I'll check to make sure the boot order is right. Everything was fine, so then I tried just straight booting from the boot menu. It skipped right over the boot and went to loading Vista. My computer is barely usable, I got a virus the other day acting as a fake anti-virus no idea how, but I just decided a fresh install would be lovely. As such, I cannot access any web browser. I am using Songbird, my media player to post this.

Thanks for your time,

Snadbad

 

[bobkn]

I hope that you didn't make the error of copying the .iso to DVD, rather than using a utility to re-create the disk that the .iso is an image of. If so, you wouldn't be the first.

 

[richc46]

Lets be sure that the problem is with the DVD. Try to boot from another DVD and see if it works. Whatever your answer, repairing becomes 50% easier.

 

[Snadbad]

Sorry, I forgot to follow up on this. I tried the same DVD on another computer, and sure enough, it did load. I tried to put in a Windows XP DVD on this computer, and it sorta just sat there. However, it is notable to say that it does recognize the 7 DVD when I'm active in Vista. It see's the DVD, and then it sees all the files inside of it.

 

[DocBrown]

How about make & model of the DVD/DC drive you are trying this on ?

 

[Snadbad]

In Device Manager, 4 things are listed, although I only have one drive. However, when I go to burn, it always says Optiarc so I guess it's the: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7190A ATA Device.

 

[DocBrown]

In your 1st post you say you had the 7 upgrade laying arround? Was that already a MS DVD for installing ? Why do you have to burn an iso ?

 

[Snadbad]

Sorry, it was the Digital River upgrade program for students. It was 30$ and you downloaded a .exe that would unpack and it would create an ISO. However, this went awry, and so upon googling, I found out that everyone had the same problem. However, Digital River and Microsoft released an official ISO download, and so I simply used that. So yeah, I did have to burn it, however, the burn worked fine as my other PC booted it right up and I saw the Win 7 install screen and everything. Is my drive incompatible or something?

 

[DocBrown]

Just did a serch the Optiarc DVD RW AD-7190A is made by Sony.

All during the Beta testing of win7 people had trouble with Sony DVD drives for installs. Any way you can switch with your other DVD drive or borrow one from a friend for install or try making a 4gb USB Flash drive bootable install ?

 

[Snadbad]

Yeah I guess I might try the USB method. I have another DVD drive in my other computer, right next to me, but that didn't pick it up. The other computer that did was a laptop


Is there like a firmware or something I can DL for it to pick it up? I really need to get this computer fixed. It's basically gone, <3 malware!

 

[DocBrown]

What programs did you use to make the DVD, what burn speed (4x is best with verify ON) ?

 

[MadMaxData]

Is there like a firmware or something I can DL for it to pick it up? I really need to get this computer fixed. It's basically gone, <3 malware!

Flashing the firmware on a DVD drive is the very last thing you want to do at this point. You should only do that if you suspect it got corrupted somehow, and your drive is unresponsive in normal use. This is NOT a firmware issue, I assure you.

 

[Snadbad]

Alright, thanks guys. I guess I'm sorta out of options here. Sorry for the late response, I didn't see the second page. At this point, I think I'm just going to see if I can get a USB stick since I'm virtually screwed in every other direction.

Thanks for all your help,

Snadbad

 

[MadMaxData]

Let us know if your successful. There's others options that can be explored, if you happen to fail with going the USB route.

 

[Snadbad]

What other options are available? I'd like to know them all before I go the USB route.

Thanks,

Snadbad

 

[bobkn]

I saw something similar lately. I was attempting a repair of a PC that had acquired a "scareware" (fake antivirus application) infection, and that the owner had rendered unable to boot by failing to uninstall it.

The DVD drive would read disks, but there was some sort of hardware problem with it: booting from a disk in the drive was not possible. Swapping in an old DVD ROM drive allowed me to finish the job.

Preparing a bootable USB key drive is pretty easy, if it's formatted as FAT32:

Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7?Even on a Netbook

It's also possible to do it for an NTFS drive, but it's a little more difficult.

This supposes that you have access to a PC with a reliable DVD reader.

It has the positive side effect of installing WIn7 rather more quickly than from the DVD.

 

[gregrocker]

Another option is to zero your HD with an autostarting CD like free Partition Wizard. Once into PW choose Wipe HD and apply zeroes to get it cleanest possible. DOD standard is max cleanest but takes hours as it applies zeros x3..

Now the DVD should autostart on the blank HD, and since I believe Digital River is full retail version you won't even have to to do the workaround for installing Upgrade to blank HD given here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

If this doesn't work, then you can borrow or buy (and later return if necessary) a DVD drive to boot the DVD, but you should zero the drive at least once to get the infection out. I would also place the DVD in your working computer's drive and rightclick scan it with AV and Spybot to make it won't import infection, and do the same with PW CD after its use.

 

[Snadbad]

Do I need to zero my harddrive? Won't a clean install kill everything? I removed the infection, it's just some registry stuff that's stopping my browsers from functioning, I think.

 

[gregrocker]

A clean install will only quick format the HD (if you use Custom install>Drive tools) which only overwrites the partition table.

The infection may still be in the overwritten data which is never preferable when you can zero the HD.

If you don't want to bother with a 3rd party utility to zero the HD, then first boot the Win7 DVD into Repair console, click through to Recovery Tools list to open a Command Prompt, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (Replace # with target HD #)
CLEAN ALL (applies zeroes to HD)
EXIT

Now boot back into DVD to Custom install using Drive Tools to create New partition(s) as you wish, then Format before installing Win7 to first partition.

 

[Snadbad]

Well, it doesn't look like I'll ever get that far. I obtained a USB, I set it up according to the link that was provided here. I plugged it into the computer, and I got ready for it to boot. The system hangs on the black screen with a bunch of text at ACPI Controller. I rebooted and tried again, and to no avail, it is still stuck there. I'm starting to think that my computer does not want ANYTHING to do with Win 7. I've googled the problem, and for most it seems to be in their boot order, but for me, my boot order shouldn't matter as I went straight to the boot menu and chose USB-HDD.

Thanks,

Snadbad