Solved x32 xp to x64 windows 7 install calamity

[dcereceres]

Hello all! great forum you guys have going here. I have been having problems with the "black screen of death" issue in trying to upgrade my x32 xp to windows 7 premium home x64. Windows 7 installs and right after the logo load in screen it goes black with naught but a movable cursor and does not respond to any cnl-alt-del or esc-sht-cnt. booting in all advanced/alternate boot modes (safe mode,low res, etc) end with same result. Now from reading on here i am figuring that it is either my bios being outdated and/or not having the new nvidia 260 driver and thus being not able to load the os, which is a fairly common problem i guess. Now, like and idiot, i did not update my bios before uninstalling xp and now when i go to install my full- disc version of xp (to try and roll back) it is saying that the cd is not the full version (even though i know it isbecause i installed it on there before). I seem to be stuck in a catch-22. i can't get win7 to boot to update bios or gpu drivers and i cant roll back to xp to at least do the bios. I can't afford to go by an ATI card to get me past boot either. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have been at this for 3 days straight.

Shine on...D

 

[bobkn]

You don't need to boot into any OS to update the BIOS. Your board supports the Asus EZ Flash utility, which allows you to update the BIOS without a bootable floppy or CD.

It's in your manual. If you've mislaid it, it's available for download from support.asus.com.

The short version: prepare a floppy with the new .rom file on it. (I believe that a CD would be OK, too.) When the machine is booting up, go into EZ Flash by pressing alt-F2. Insert the floppy. It's supposed to be automatic from there on.

I doubt that drivers for the graphics cards is the problem. (For starters, though, I'd suggest installing with just one card in place. You can SLI the second one later.)

I don't know whether Win7 includes drivers for your motherboard's chipset, which is an old nVidia nForce4 SLI X16. I expect that it does. If not, there are Vista drivers for it, which may serve. (nVidia has put it in the "legacy" category, though, which means that it's not supported in current "unified" driver releases.)

 

[gregrocker]

Try resetting your CMOS: Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS - Reset BIOS

Also in BIOS setup, set your SATA controller setting to AHCI first, then IDE if necessary.

Remove all but 2gb of RAM to try install. Test all of your RAM with memtest86 CD for 5-6 passes or overnight.

Wipe the HD before trying install: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html

 

[dcereceres]

Thank you guys soooooo much for the speedy responses! As it turns out Bob you were right, it was not the nvidias. And you were right as well Greg. It was a memory problem...a disabled memory mapping problem. After reading your responses it dawned on me that after i had put in 4g's (over my previous 2) I hadn't adjusted the memory mapping in Bios. I went in there and enabled it and Ta-Da I'm booted into win7 and in the lenghty process of dl'n all the drivers. I want to thank you guys again. It really helped to get a couple of fresh and intelligent heads in the mix. After 3 days i was fried.
Thanks one more time. Be well and shine on...Darian

 

[dcereceres]

one more quick question if i might be so bold..I am trying to update my bios to the latest edition but i can't find any dl's for win7 64. I know bios is before the os but i dont know how to get around this. The asus bios ipdate tool also does not come in a win7 64version. Am I locked into the old version?

 

[bobkn]

one more quick question if i might be so bold..I am trying to update my bios to the latest edition but i can't find any dl's for win7 64. I know bios is before the os but i dont know how to get around this. The asus bios ipdate tool also does not come in a win7 64version. Am I locked into the old version?

EZ Flash is OS-independent; it runs from the BIOS itself. The latest BIOS version (9.01) available for download is a .rom file. Extract it from the .zip file to a floppy (it'll fit). Press alt-F2 during startup to launch EZ Flash. Insert the floppy, and off you go.

Your other alternative would be to use AFUDOS, which runs from a DOS startup. That would require either a bootable floppy, or a prepared USB flash drive that boots a form of DOS. (I have an old 128MB drive for the purpose.) EZ Flash is easier, though.

 

[gregrocker]

What drivers are you downloading? Win7 installer is mostly driver-complete, with newer arriving quickly via optional Windows Updates.

This is not XP or Vista. You don't need to swap out any drivers unless performance dictates it.

If any drivers are missing in Device Manager after install and Updates, find them on the Support Downloads webpage for your model computer or device.