Can't Upgrade to Vista or 7?

[killthenakedcat]

I currently have windows XP Pro on my desktop which I built about 2 years ago(specs are in sig I believe). I was ready to upgrade to Windows 7 but every time I tried to I got random error messages and blue screens which were almost always different messages(Memory_Management and many others). I ran the upgrade advisor and it said I was ready to go and had no issues other than programs. I did a clean install wiped out the partition of XP and started new just like it said on Microsoft site. I figured maybe it'd be easier to go from XP to Vista first. The same thing happens while trying to install Vista. While installing the files onto my computer it freezes and I get the blue screen with the error messages(still different) every time. Any ideas on what is causing these errors?

 

[BK_123]

Yes I suggest you from XP to vista and then to 7

 

[cboucher]

You may need use a boot CD with a disk cleaning/partitioning application on it to "clean" the boot information off of the hard drive. I usually use Hiren's Mini XP, open up a command prompt and use "diskpart". You enter diskpart at the command prompt, then enter list disk. It will show you all the available hard drives and assign them a number. We'll call this one disk 0. Then you enter select disk 0. Finally, enter clean. Wait a few seconds for the process to finish and then you just exit out of everything and reboot using your Windows 7 DVD. There are many other ways to clean the disk as I described. DBAN and nukepart are two thers that pretty much do the same thing.

 

[killthenakedcat]

Is there no way to upgrade to Vista without doing a clean install? I would like to keep everything intact as far as my files go. I tried doing both the regular upgrade from within XP instead using it as a startup and using it as a boot disk to start from scratch and deleting partitions. Both ways I got errors with. Is there any kind of hardware issues I could be having that would cause the errors?

Just a side note...When installing 7 one time, I got all the way to 99% on installing devices and then it gave me a rgular pop-up error that said something like "Windows could not configure one or more system components" and restarted.

 

[cboucher]

This is just my opinion, but upgrade installs are a bad idea. They may a little easier to perform if everything goes right, but always seems to have problems later. If I were you, I would get an external USB hard drive, copy over all the files I wanted to keep (pictures, videos, music, whatever) and just do a clean OS install. Then, just copy all your files over to the newly installed system. I don't ever do upgrades, because I always hear from people who did the upgrade and now have weird blue screen problems or certain applications won't work anymore, but they can't reinstall them properly either. Way too many headaches with upgrades...

 

[BK_123]

well would you buy a new computer with windows 7

 

[lhuser]

XP can't upgrade to 7. It's a clean install only.
I've done upgrades, and the only way it worked was with a brand new laptop with Vista, and upgrade to 7 immediatly. I'd say to do a clean install of 7 instead of upgrading. Backup your important data first though. Only problem remains...do you have an upgrade liscence?

If you still have troubls installing from clean installs, I'd suggest to tes your HDD and RAM with some testing tools.

well would you buy a new computer with windows 7

We're talking about XP upgrading to 7...I don't see where the new computer would fit in there

 

[killthenakedcat]

I don't have that kind of money right now. I would like to build another computer and now buy any brand name computer. Still don't have the money though.

 

[lhuser]

You're fine with the specs at the moment, if you're not gaming, of course.

I'd say try a clean install of 7, see what that does.

 

[killthenakedcat]

I tried the clean install of 7 and that's when I got to 99% installing devices and got the pop-up error. I have googled this problem and searched for a couple weeks now and still no fix.