Win 7 upgrade iso will not boot

[Proximon]

Hi all, I have read everything I could find on this but I just can't figure it out. I'm the go-to guy for a small non-profit. I recently built some new office comps and got some win 7 upgrade licenses through techsoup.
MS was not offering the deep discounts on full versions, so I had to order upgrades.
The OSes we have to work with are XP Pro, 32-bit. In order to upgrade 32-bit XP to Win 64-bit, you are supposed to boot with the upgrade disk and do a custom install... so I HAVE to boot from a DVD.
-I have downloaded the Win 7 Professional 64-bit upgrade W/SP1 several times, to different machines with different connections. In each case the download seemed successful.
-I have burned the iso using Win 7. I have used both DVD-R and DVD+R. These were readable but would not boot.
-I tried ImgBurn with DVD-R and got the same results. No Boot.
-I tried Cheetah DVD Burner, same result. -I tried the resulting DVDs in OTHER machines with different types of DVD drives.
The DVDs are simply NOT recognized as boot disks. Anyone have an idea about this? I'm thinking this download is simply not bootable.

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi, welcome to the forums

This may sound like a "suck eggs" question but are the machines set to boot from CD/DVD in the BIOS?

Also, it could be that the ISO's you've downloaded are indeed non-booting. You can download UltraISO - Trial which can tell you if the media in the drive is infact bootable.

   Note

With the trial you cannot create and re-burn a bootable ISO

OS

 

[Orbital Shark]

Also, can you not just run the setup from within XP and choose the Custom Install?

   Note

Windows XP cannot be directly upgraded to Windows 7

 

[Proximon]

Thanks for the quick response. It helps just to have someone that understands the problem. Yes, I have in each case made the BIOS changes that were needed. I have also booted with other DVDs just to prove to myself that I could. I'll grab that trial version right now.

 

[Proximon]

Oh, and because I am upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit I just get an error about the incorrect version if I click on setup from within XP.

 

[Orbital Shark]

Oh, and because I am upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit I just get an error about the incorrect version if I click on setup from within XP.

ok

 

[Proximon]

ultraISO didn't see a bootable disk or ISO either. I'm hoping this is just a problem with the newer SP1 version. Downloading the original non-SP version now to see if that will boot.

 

[Proximon]

Not bootable either. I have an email into volume licensing support.

 

[theog]

Can you open the DVD & check to see you have all files?
Should look like this:

 

[Orbital Shark]

I think you will have a lot better luck with the non-sp1 ISO as it seems that there has been an error when it was made :shock:

 

[Proximon]

Can you open the DVD & check to see you have all files?
Should look like this:

View attachment 148895

Thanks, yes it looks exactly like that, right down to the size of the files.

 

[Proximon]

I think you will have a lot better luck with the non-sp1 ISO as it seems that there has been an error when it was made :shock:

You would think so, but no. No boot from the non-SP1 ISO either.

 

[Proximon]

I'm going to burn something else to boot from as a check... I'll post results here.

 

[theog]

1) Try burning at a very slow speed.
2) Try booting from the same DVD drive ISO burnt on.

 

[gregrocker]

Confirm the ISO HASH against official Win7 HASH: HashTab... is the coolest thing ever!
Windows 7 RTM SHA-1 hash - checksums

Confirm ISO says bootable in ImgBurn listings text at left. If ImgBurn at 4x speed with Verify fails, Try burning with the Win7 download tool: Windows 7 USB-DVD Download Tool - Windows 7 Forums

If DVD's continue to fail to boot, try writing the ISO to flash stick with above tool, or using Ultra ISO trial version.

 

[Hannibal001]

@ Proximon Are you sure the dvd players are in working order ? Maybe the player is having probs because they are on their way out ?? You can always get program to boot from USB and install from there also. It's from Microsuck, ( I mean Microsoft LOL ) itself; it is called : Win Setup From USB. Just search it on MS web site and follow directions.If it says Vista don't worry it work on 7. This is assuming you can boot from USB on these systems. Hope this helps you out, it has me in past w/ bad dvd players and system would not boot from external DVD. I have tried others but this one worked best (yes I know who its from but still.... ) Welcome in advance if work for you,
Hannibal001

 

[Proximon]

Good morning and thank you all for your willingness to help out. I spend a good bit of time over at the Tom's Hardware forums helping folks out troubleshooting and making parts selections, and it's kind of nice to be on the other end for a change.
I'm currently burning a new disk (non-SP1) at slower speed (x4) with ImgBurn. I had only used ImgBurn on my laptop previously and this time it gave me many more options and a few prompts. I guess my Samsung BD-ROM combo drive is more capable than whatever is in the laptop. Still, I have burned half a dozen Win 7 disks from here so far and none have booted.

Last night I used the exact same equipment and same method to burn Ubuntu 10.10. This booted with no issues at all. Still, the size of the burn and the speed they have been done at could be factors... most burns were verified of course.

Well, I'm off to try this latest slower burn.

 

[Proximon]

No Joy.

Here is the data of the latest disk from ImgBurn:
SAMSUNG DVDWBD SH-B083L SB00 (ATA)
Current Profile: DVD+R DL

Disc Information:
Status: Complete
State of Last Session: Complete
Erasable: No
Sessions: 1
Sectors: 1,523,248
Size: 3,119,611,904 bytes
Time: 338:31:73 (MM:SS:FF)
Supported Write Speeds: 4x, 6x, 8x

DVD±R DL Boundary Information:
L0 Data Zone Capacity: 761,632
Changeable: No

TOC Information:
Session 1... (LBA: 0)
-> Track 01 (Mode 1, LBA: 0 - 1523247)
-> LeadOut (LBA: 1523248)

Disc Control Blocks Information:
TSSTcorp TS-LB23A

Physical Format Information (ADIP - L0):
Disc ID: CMC MAG-D03-64
Book Type: DVD+R DL
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 2
Track Path: Opposite Track Path (OTP)
Linear Density: 0.293 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 16,580,607
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 2,283,519

Physical Format Information (ADIP - L1):
Disc ID: CMC MAG-D03-64
Book Type: DVD+R DL
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 2
Track Path: Opposite Track Path (OTP)
Linear Density: 0.293 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 16,580,607
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 2,283,519

Physical Format Information (Last Recorded - L0):
Disc ID: CMC MAG-D03-64
Book Type: DVD+R DL
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 2
Track Path: Opposite Track Path (OTP)
Linear Density: 0.293 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 16,580,591
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 958,239

Physical Format Information (Last Recorded - L1):
Disc ID: CMC MAG-D03-64
Book Type: DVD+R DL
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 2
Track Path: Opposite Track Path (OTP)
Linear Density: 0.293 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 16,580,591
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 958,239

Layer Information:
Layer 0 Sectors: 761,632 (50%)
Layer 1 Sectors: 761,616 (50%)

Performance (Write Speed):
Descriptor 1...
-> B0: 0x00, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 1523247 (0x00173E2F)
-> RS: 16,620 KB/s (12x) - WS: 5,540 KB/s (4x)
Descriptor 2...
-> B0: 0x00, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 1523247 (0x00173E2F)
-> RS: 16,620 KB/s (12x) - WS: 8,310 KB/s (6x)
Descriptor 3...
-> B0: 0x00, B1: 0x00, B2: 0x00, B3: 0x00
-> EL: 1523247 (0x00173E2F)
-> RS: 16,620 KB/s (12x) - WS: 11,080 KB/s (8x)
-----------------------------------------

@gregrocker I'm using the upgrade version so none of those checksums match. The SHA-1 taken from the downloaded ISO is : 4201AA47113697688F4DA8E8B151E32F1CF61B36

I want to thank you for this tool though! I'm just paranoid enough to keep this one around.

I think my next step is a USB drive. The MSI 880G motherboards have simple little BIOS screens but I did notice an option to "Boot from other device" so I hope that means USB.

I'm tired of making coasters

 

[Proximon]

Tried the MS tool to burn a DVD. Same as before.

The USB drive successfully booted, however. So, I have a solution but not an answer.

Thanks to everyone that suggested the USB drive.

Could it be the HP media? I was trying two different types:
HP Double Layer 8X DVD+R 8.5GB
HP 16x DVD-R 4.7GB

 

[gregrocker]

Did the bootable USB stick complete the install successfully?

This would rule out the ISO.

Where did you get Win7?