Disk error after 1st reboot in W7 re-install

[IcarusII]

Hi folks,

History:
Yesterday I installed W7 and all working ok. For resons I wont go into I decided that a re-install (as so little info was in the o/s) was easier than trying to solve admin/user issues.

Setup before re-install:
My HDD has 3 partitions and some unallocated space
Partition 1 - System Reserved 300 Mb (NTFS, Primary, Active)
Partition 2 - Windows 7 400 Gb (NTFS, Primary)
Partition 3 - Vista Image from another HDD 150 Gb (NTFS, Primary)
Unallocated space - approx 400 Gb

Prior to beginning the renstall W7 was stable and happy. I could also dual boot happily into Vista on the other partition using the Win boot menu.

Re-Instal Process:
Went into Partition Wizard Boot CD and then wiped both the Sys Reserved partition and the Windows 7 partition (i wrote 0's to both)
I then formated both of these partitions using PWBD
Lastly I ensured that the Sys Res partition was Active (which it still was from last time)
I then re-booted using the W7 install DVD
It went through the instal process quite happily until the first re-boot is needed.

At this point during the previous and sucessful installation on Sat, upon booting up it said 'press any key to boot ffrom DVD drive' so i left it and it then booted from the HDD and carried on with the W7 install for 5 more mins and was done.

However this time, I got the same message about booting from the DVD and again I left it and nothing happened. After 5 mins I gave up and hit a key and it just said disk read error and hung on a back screen with flashing cursor.

So I ejected the W7 DVD and rebooted and just got the same message.

SO I rebooted with the W7 dvd in this time - and it began re-installing W7 again. It got about 5 mins into the instal process (was going a lot faster than normal cos most of the files were already there and uncompressed) and then gave the message of 'there are already windows files on the drive, it will copy them to a file called windows.old and carry on with the install'

Becasue I want a clean install (and dont want a messed up install in there somewhere), whilst I wait for replies Ive been back into PWBD and am currently re-wiping the Sys Res drive and the W7 drive ahead of another attempt at installing

I decided agaiunst this at the time and have just stopped and am writing this here to see what people think is the best way to proceed or if Im doing something obviously silly.

Aside from the wipe Im doing, the method of installing W7 with a pre created Sys Res partition worked perfectly on Sat under Barefoot Kids guidance

Thanks in advance for any thoughts
Matt

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Matt.



Do the wipes again, it's always best to have the best possible space to install Windows 7 to.


If the Windows 7 install disk is one you burned yourself it may be a bad burn and needs to be done again, if so this would be the first thing to try.

Use the free ISO burner at the link below to burn another at a speed of now more than 4x and select to let the program to verify the disk before it finishes.

ImgBurn Free ISO Burner

 

[IcarusII]

Hi barefoot,

Wipes are in progress

The w7 disc is original. It's a w7 full retail version home premium purchased fri. It's got the 32bit and 64bit versions on separate disks. Yesterday I installed the 64 bit and that's the one I wish to stick with

The affore mentioned 'read error' was when trying to read the hdd not the odd. Also the hdd is brand new as of fri

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Maybe it was a one-off error and it will go well this time, give it a go.



Check all the HDD cable connections.

 

[karlsnooks]

Icarus,

Boot from the Win 7 DVD.
At the very first dialog press SHIFT F10 key combo

Go to a a command prompt.

Run DiskPart's clean all command.

​

​

[FONT=&quot]WIPE A DISK CLEAN[/FONT]​

· type DiskPart, Enter key
· type List disk, Enter key
note the numeral of the disk you want to clean
for example purposes, I’ll be using the numeral 2
· type Select disk 2, Enter key
· type Detail disk, Enter key
this info will let you know if you selected correctly
· type Clean ALL, Enter key
your entire disk is being overwritten with zeros.
This can take a considerable amount of time
· type EXIT, Enter key (only after Clean is finished)
· type EXIT, Enter key (this gets you back where you were)

 

[gregrocker]

Karl he wants to keep his Vista partition so can't Clean All.

Are there flags showing on Vista partition now in PW, Matt?

 

[IcarusII]

Hi Greg,

Wipes are finished now but am away from home pc because I'm at work now (it's 9am Monday for me')

However when last looks at the end of the wipe last night the following info was there:

Acitive / non-active flag. My system reserved partition is still active

Ntfs - the sys res, win 7 and vista partitions are all labeled ntfs. The unallocated space is not

However after the wipe with zeros the partitions that were sys res and win 7 don't have their labels anymore and are also showing up as unformatted

I havent yet formatted them - that was going to be my next question: do I format then with PWBD or do I launch straight into win7 install

Only problem with the latter is that if I do, neither partition will have a label during install and I'll have to guess where to install w7 based on the size of the partition alone

Matt

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

You don't need to do anything else in PW; when you get here you can easily tell the partitions apart, you can also format them here also at "Drive Options (advanced)" do it this way.

click to enlarge

​

 

[gregrocker]

I was asking you earlier if any flags changed on the Vista partition. There should be none.

Partition using PW CD since you need to mark System Reserved Active again.

If the install fails again then I would boot back in, delete the SysReserved and WIn7 partitions, then create one partition in that space to try installing to.

Do you have any Win7 backup images?

 

[IcarusII]

Barefoot kid: ok - thanks. I will give it another shot at a re- install without formatting either the sysres or w7 partitions from PWBD. I will use w7 installer to format. I presume that this process will all me' to re-label the two currently unlabelled partitions?

Greg: hi. To be clear:
The vista partition did not have an active flag before w7 was reinstalled, nor during or after the partition wipes of the w7 and sysres partitions. The active flag (according to pwbd) has always remained with the sys res partition. I've never had to set or under this since the original installation of w7

Additionally, the wiping of the sysres and w7 partitions did not require me' to unmake or remake any partitions. I just scheduled a wipe of both the sysres and w7 partitions (as labeled) from within pwbd. After the wipe the partitions are still there, just unlabeled and unformatted. Their sizes are as before

I'm trying not to be confusing- sorry.
Because the partitions are still there, even after the wipe, the partition that was labeled sysres (but now has no label) is still marked as active

Hope that explains?

If this re-install fails tonight, then I will delete the sysres and windows 7 partitions and create a single, wiped w7 partition and try an install into that and see how it goes

Thanks
Matt

 

[gregrocker]

Sounds good. Thanks for clarifying. You should have no problem figuring out which two partitions to format using Installer Drive Options, but they won't be labeled. Just make sure the partition highlighted is the correct size before clicking Next.

If install fails again, you'll need to use PW CD to delete both partitions and create a new one in order to mark it Active.

 

[IcarusII]

Update and resolution:

Hi Barefoot Kid & Greg. thought you might like to know the outcome now Im back on-line and home from work.

After doing my 2nd wipe of the SysRes partition and the Win7 partition, i didnt format them using PWBD as Barefoot suggested, but just ensured SysRes was set to active (it already was) and launched the W7 install DVD.

I then formatted both the SysRes and the W7 partitions via the install process of W7 (this took a fraction of a second for each drive - is this becasue the drive already has 0's written to it? The first time format of the partitions from new took hours)

The installation from there preceeded flawlessly and this time the re-starts during installation were fine...the message about 'press any key to boot from DVD' came up but timed out after 2 deconds and then continued to boot from the W7 drive.

im in 7 now. Ive just taken my first disk image of SysRes and W7 and saved them to another HDD. So now at least i can just re-image rather than re-install.

Only things left to do now are:

Deal with the unallocated space at the end of this HDD (im sure barefoot Kid suggested a tutorial on how to do this - ill go find the post)

Add the unafected Vista partition on this HDD to the boot sequence with easy BCD (ive done that once before so should be ok)

Get my drivers all sorted out (i have a few ! marks in device manager)

Take another image

Start installing progs

Thanks for both your helps and support. The SysRes thing is still working fine here. Im sure the failure to read the drive was some kind of wierd glitch.

OH - question: because i wiped my SysRes and W7 partitions and then formatted during W7 install neither of them have labels (see snip). how do I get them re-labeled? i know i shuldnt assign a drive letter to SysRes and am happy not to.

Matt

 

[karlsnooks]

Matt,

You forgot to include the snip, something which I frequently do.

However, try using DiskMaagment to label/relabel.

It that fails, then DiskPart will succeed

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

You have to re-Label in "Computer" not disk management.

​

Congrats on the success.

 

[gregrocker]

Check optional Updates for the missing drivers first, then Support Downloads webpage for your model. Any Unknown can be found by browsing from Update Driver tab to Vista/Windows/System32/drivers or /driverstore, then find the latest version after seeing if Updates delivers first.

The image you want to replace reinstall is after you're all set up, cleaned and defragged but before corruption starts creeping in.

Install updates and then programs slowly over time to gauge performance after each. Don't let any programs write themselves into msconfig>Startup as they become freeloaders on your RAM/CPU and can spy on you. I only allow AV and gadgets. http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/70248-troubleshooting-msconfig.html

When it is finished, clean and order the HD perfectly using state-of-the-art free CCleaner then Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers monthly. http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/
http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-...67503.html?part=dl-6267754&subj=dl&tag=button
http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-Registry-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10678033.html?tag=mncol;1

 

[karlsnooks]

You have to re-Label in "Computer" not disk management.

You can relabel in either place BareFoot. Either way, you can choose Properties and go from there.

I just did it again to make sure that I wasn't suffering from old-timers disease.

 

[IcarusII]

Barefoot / karlsnooks:
For what its worth, even though both ways may work, the partition that should be called System Reserved does not show up in 'Computer' i guess becasue its a system file.

my wife just handed me a glass of wine! now thats service

So i think ill try to rename the two partitions in disk management as i can see all the partitions in there.

Greg: thanks for the info. Will follow up on most of that. Regarding CC cleaner - i used to use that all the time on Vista with no bother. But im sure I read somewhere that W7 and CC cleaner dont mix. is there a W7 version of it?

Matt

 

[karlsnooks]

Icarus,
I don't consider it worth the effort, but you can use DiskPart to label.
Was that a red/white/riesling/Gewuerztraimer/Mueller-Thurgau?

 

[gregrocker]

CCleaner in any version of Windows is perhaps the single-most respected genius app in tech, used by all professionals and knowing tech enthusiasts. I have used it on hundreds of installs over ten years without a hiccup.

Sometimes it will be slighted because it's Registry cleaner is lumped in with the many Registry Cleaner sales scams that show up on web page ads but have no genius behind them and can actually harm your system. But inquiring closer with anyone who reports that CCleaner Registry cleaner borked their system, you will find that other more likely causes were in the mix.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Post up a snip of disk management.