Installing Windows 7 64-bit

RhysAndrews

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Hey everyone.
I'm turning my old computer into a HTPC, and part of this involves installing Windows 7 64-bit (I like the media center it has, + much faster than Vista).

So I have the release candidate, ISO burnt to a DVD... and I've had a number of issues while installing.

1. Got to the Windows Logo with "Starting Windows" just after it loads the installation files. It sits there forever. Had to restart a couple of times and then it worked.

2. Shows just the wallpaper and cursor, doesn't appear to be doing anything. I had to wait about 5 minutes for the initial screen to come up.

3. Now I've picked my partition and it is installing windows. "Copying Windows Files" was almost instantly ticked, and now it's taking forever @ "Expanding Windows Files". I've had it installing for about 10 minutes now and it is only 2% done.

These are my specs:
Athlon x2 6400+ 3.2ghz Processor
2GB Corsair DDR2 800MHz RAM
Gigabyte GA-M68SM (or something like that)
Palit 9600GT
Seagate 320GB Barracuda

Any ideas as to why it is taking so long to expand the Windows files?
Thanks
-Rhys
 
Bad burn to disk or a need to clean the lens on the optical drive. I've repeatedly installed the betas as well as the RCs here(both flavors for each) and it never takes over 20 minutes total! If the installation is simply hanging the blank you used or simply the program even may need replacement!
 
I've downloaded Windows 7 twice. Once it was the 32-bit BETA, this time 64-bit RC. Both times I had the same issue. The current disk was burnt on an entirely different system, too.

The burner has had no issue installing other versions of Windows on the machine, so I highly doubt it is the burner.
 
Then you look at the particular disk you used. A bad blank or incomplete burn would explain why files are not being copied fully to the drive. Have a usb flash drive onhand by chance(4gb at least)?

If you have a separate partition or drive on the system there you can unpack the iso onto that and run the setup file from there if you already had an existing Vista or previous 7 installation on for a custom install to replace that.

Besides the optical drive the next hardware inline to prevent an installation would be bad memory if any faults are being seen. Are the specs there for the second machine? If so you should be seeing 7 go right on.
 
No no, Windows 7 installs fine on other systems, just not this one. So there is nothing wrong with the burn.

I haven't got a separate partition.
 
With a good burn, good drive, bad hard drive? Bad ram? or cpu even?

With the disk and optical drive in good working shape? you have to start looking at what would stop any version of Windows from going on. But how long ago did you install any Windows by booting with any disk in that particular drive?

The last dvd burner here would suddenly act up and not boot any disk until replaced while I suspect a good test on the hard drive itself for bad sectors or a bad cable won't hurt any. After repeat boots you should have already had 7 on by this time.
 
I used the DVD Drive only yesterday to install XP 64-bit Edition onto a *DIFFERENT* system.

I have tried to install Windows 7 onto another hard-drive on this system before, but had the same problem.

So I'm cancelling out the disk, the optical drive, and the hard-disk as being the problem. This means it needs to be the BIOS settings, RAM, or CPU that is playing up - however I've not had any problems with the RAM or CPU before, or with any other installs done on this system (I've installed Vista before and XP twice)

So I've left it on for about 4 hours now, and it has reached 95%... but it hasn't moved from that for 20 minutes! It looks like it might have gotten stuck on 95%, which REALLY sucks. Any suggestions much appreciated

-Rhys
 
During an OS Install, your RAM is pushed to the max. Having only 2GB of RAM in your system for Windows 7 should be sufficient, but it will undoubtedly run kind of slow, especially on the install.

I have 6GB of RAM in my computer, and when I was installing Vista 64-bit (I know those are two different OS's) the install process still took quite a while. Just be patient. The progress bar may sit at a certain point (like 2%) for 10-20 minutes. I'm not sure why it does that, but it is actually more common than you may think. That even happened to me with 3x as much RAM in my system than is in yours.

If you're going to be running Windows 7, you may want to look into upgrading your RAM. Try for around 4GB - that will be WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH.

I guess, all in all, just be patient. It will take a while.
 
@elgsus
I highly doubt it is the memory, or that it's "natural".
Windows XP takes 15 minutes to install. I left Vista installing for over 8 hours and it got to 25%. Are you telling me Vista SHOULD take over 24 hours to install? Windows 7 took from 7pm until 11pm to get to 95% and did not progress after that for a couple of hours.
 
Either it's crap media that it's burnt on, or the computer you're installing it on has a bad drive/HDD, or it's just really slow :p

I don't see what else could be wrong =/
 
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