Sudden hardware incompatibility on clean re-install?

[ravenhaired]

I just built my first rig a week or so ago. I'm not the most experienced troubleshooter.

Intel i7 920, not currently overclocked
Asus P6T LGA
XFX Radeon 5770
G.Skill 3x2GB DDR3 1600
Corsair TX 750watt PSU
A single SATA WD Caviar Black 640GB
A single SATA Lite-on CD/DVD burner

Building went just fine- everything posted right away. I set up a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and Ubuntu 9.10 dual boot. Two partitions for the two OSes, and a third for general storage. My copy of Win7 was purchased from my university's webstore, and the .iso burned to DVD using ImgBurn on a slow speed. The installs went smoothly, everything operated well for about a week.

I started to get some error message about win32kernell.dll being messed up. I thought I might have let AVG move something it shouldn't have. Then on a reboot, I got the "Windows was unable to start" jazz and the repairer, which eventually let me back into the OS, which was still not running smoothly, same error. I didn't have much installed on the machine yet, and decided to just do a new clean install from my install disk rather than mess with it.

Win7 reinstalled smoothly on its partition, if slow, and it seemed alright again for about a day. I then started receiving errors about installers not being able to run properly, and then on reboot, Windows was unable to start again. The repairer got me into the OS, but Windows Explorer was crashing every three seconds and it was unfortunately rather fubared.

Tried to clean install again and got right up to the end before getting a message that Win7 could not set up on my hardware.

The hardware seemed to work fine once, so has something failed recently, and how should I go about testing? If not that, please share. I could try completely reformatting the entire hard drive, not just the Windows partition, but I don't know if this would do any good. If I'm doing something terribly newbish, I apologize for my ways!

 

[Zidane24]

Was there any applications that you installed on both installations of Windows 7 you have performed? What other common things did you do between the two (such as adjusting any settings)

 

[Geo64]

Please completely uninstall AVG. It is the worst problem causer, poor performance causer and bsod causer of all Windows software.

After, you will be happy. Do not just disable as that will not help.

 

[ravenhaired]

I installed AVG the first time, but after the first re-install, I put Avira on instead, so that is already off my system. I'd never had any problems with it before, but I don't think I'll be going back.

I barely had anything installed after the first reinstall... pretty much only Firefox, uTorrent, VLC, AIM, Avira, video driver, and wireless card driver. The only setting I messed with both times was power management, just telling it not to sleep. I hadn't gotten that much of a chance to mess with it.

 

[Geo64]

For the types of errors you're getting, I'd go ahead and uninstall Avira too, to test. It's the likely cause.

 

[Zidane24]

I installed AVG the first time, but after the first re-install, I put Avira on instead, so that is already off my system. I'd never had any problems with it before, but I don't think I'll be going back.

I barely had anything installed after the first reinstall... pretty much only Firefox, uTorrent, VLC, AIM, Avira, video driver, and wireless card driver. The only setting I messed with both times was power management, just telling it not to sleep. I hadn't gotten that much of a chance to mess with it.

It almost seems to scream a hardware problem because I just can't see how a clean install would go array just like that when you haven't done anything nad the apps you have installed don't seem to be the culprit...

 

[ravenhaired]

At the moment, I can't boot into my OS, and the clean install failed. Even when I last could, I'm not sure I could with Windows Explorer crashing constantly...

EDIT: That's what I was thinking, but do you have any advice on what might be the likely culprit, or how to test? Thank you guys for this!

 

[Geo64]

You can boot to safe mode + networking and try to uninstall the antivirus software from there.

Keep hitting f8 at boot up to get the safe mode + networking choice.

Use Dameware NT Utilities to delete the Avira services too.

http://www.dameware.com/

Add your machine to favorites if it's not already in Workgroup section in Dameware. Then go to services, delete services.

While deleting, check the box to delete the drivers too.

After, reboot to normal mode.

If that doesn't help, boot to only safe mode and use device manager to uninstall the wireless driver. Again, check the box to delete drivers while trying this.

Reboot to normal mode.

 

[gregrocker]

Do you have the GRUB bootloader for your dual boot?

 

[ravenhaired]

First time mashing F8, I got an "overclock failed" message instead. Retried after setting all my BIOS setting back to default, though I'm pretty sure they were already there.

New screen on restart, a BIOSy looking thing that I haven't seen before telling me to select my boot device, which I selected as my hard drive.

I missed the F8 window, because I'm awesome, and got 'Setup is completing services' then, 'Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on the computer, restart the computer.' Did so, same error.

Then went back and got into the safe mode choices. After choosing 'Only safe mode' (didn't see your edit before that, sorry!) I got virtually the same error: 'Windows could not complete the installation in Safe Mode. To install Windows on the computer, restart the computer.'

Any other tips or tricks?

As to the GRUB loader, I did have it, but after the first reinstall, Windows took over and the option was not presented anymore. I hear this is normal? I had not taken any steps to get it back yet.

 

[Geo64]

I would take a little of everyone's advice here.

Ensure nothing is overclocked again. Then clean install Windows by booting to the DVD and formatting too. You can do so by hitting advanced when the installer asks where to install to.

Don't install any antivirus right away. Or instead, install MSE. This way, we could rule out antivirus as an issue.

Hold off on installing the wireless driver until you know if the machine is good or not.

 

[gregrocker]

As to the GRUB loader, I did have it, but after the first reinstall, Windows took over and the option was not presented anymore. I hear this is normal? I had not taken any steps to get it back yet.

I believe you need to remove the GRUB as it is conflicting with Windows.

Ubuntu requires you to remove GRUB when installing Windows 7, then replace it afterwards.

I do not know if Windows 7 can correctly configure a dual boot with Ubuntu when it is properly installed last.

You can find this out by removing GRUB and doing a Win7 repair install to correctly reconfig the boot.

It may be that you can only remove GRUB by formatting, however.

 

[ravenhaired]

I had been formatting with the 'advanced' option every time, but I think I'll try this, and just wipe the entire drive, partitions and all, if GRUB is causing the problems. I can add the Ubuntu back in later, I suppose. Will rescue my files first, as the Ubuntu Live disc is lovely, and will let you know, thank you!

 

[gregrocker]

I would do the cleanest possible format, which is to zero the drive. You can use Darik's Boot N Nuke, your HD's DOS diagnostics disk, or these Diskpart commands run from Win7 DVD Repair console>Recovery Tools:

Open a Command Line and type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (for Windows 7 disk)
clean all ("all" is zeroing)
create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c:
active
format
exit

Note that you can exit after Clean All if you want to create/format the partitions using the Advanced Drive tools during Custom install from booted Win7 DVD.

The commands given above will pre-format so that you won't get the 100mb Win7 System Reserved partition.

 

[ravenhaired]

I zeroed the drive using Killdisk, as I've used it before. Attempted to do another install, and.... still no dice. It goes through the motions, and then I get Window's boot manager telling me that Windows failed to start, and recommends I run the repairer. Safe mode did not work either.

It also gives me this:

File: \Windows\System32\DRIVERS\ql2300.sys
Status: 0xc0000221
Info: Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing, or corrupt.

This makes it sound like the install disc I'm using is messed up, though it worked before?

 

[Geo64]

Try installing from a USB Key instead.

It will eliminate any burn errors.

 

[gregrocker]

When exactly in the install process does this appear?

 

[ravenhaired]

I actually brilliantly missed the precise spot where it failed, had to leave the room for a moment. I could try to install again and pay more attention, augh.

I don't have a large enough flash drive at the moment, but I'll see if I can get ahold of one.

So this seems like more of a software than a hardware thing, judging on most of the replies?

 

[Geo64]

Yes, it is probably from a badly burned DVD and it couldn't copy or access that driver while installing; hence the error.

It could also be from a bad download itself but this is less likely.

 

[ravenhaired]

This confuses me as the installation went smoothly the first time from this same DVD, though I'll take your word for it, it's a better option than having to RMA some hardware.