Windows 7 Installation Nightmare

[MR411]

I downloaded Windows 7 RC1 and for the life of me I can't get it to install. I've tried redownloading and reburning multiple times and each copy blue screens just after the splash screen with the 4 "balls of light" windows icon. The stop code is 0x7E.
I have tried everything I can shake a stick at, taking out every non essential part, installing on a fresh partition, even went so far as to try it on a brand new HD and still get the same results.

My system is no powerhouse but it meets the min. specs for 7. Gigabyte GA-7N400L mobo, Athlon XP 2400+, 3gb RAM, GeForce FX5200 video card. The only problem I can see left is the motherboard bios. Its the latest one but its from 2004 so my question is has anyone here with a GA-7N400L board had 7 install ok for them?

This is seriously frustrating

 

[daprez546]

I suspect the problem is your video card and drivers. There are some possible solutions, but first let me ask:

What OS were you running before trying to install Win 7 RC? Was it XP? Was it Vista?

Which Win 7 RC version are you trying to install? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit? Did you download it from MS?

The reason I am asking is that if you were running Vista before, then you can use DriveMax (a free program) to transfer your video driver files over to Win 7 RC. If not, then we will have to look for other possibilities.

For example, do you have access to another 8X AGP card with more recent drivers? FX5200 might have to be updated for the more intense graphics available now, especially Aero.

Just some thoughts ... hope they help.

 

[MR411]

I was using XP Pro SP2. I've never had Vista installed on this machine. I'm trying to install RC1 build 7100 and I did get is from MS's site. Sadly no I dont have another video card on hand to test it but I'm thinking that is my problem. The same dvd installed fine on another box running a Pentium dual core and intel on board video so I know its not the disc or the files on it.

 

[MR411]

Well I found another video card and put it in, tried to install 7 once more, same blue screen. So before I broke out the hammer on it I decided to try one last thing and started scaling back the memory, taking out one stick at a time. Well wouldn't you know for some reason it didn't like one of my memory modules. Took out the problem child and it installed just fine.

On the plus side you can install and run Windows 7 reasonably well on just 1gb of ram. It was a bit sluggish but certainly workable.

 

[kevin from Chi-town]

good for you...RAM would have been my suggestion...it was the problem child of one of my installations too. However, once its loaded, youi may be able to reinstall the RAM