Windows 7 Need Help With A Dual Boot Question.

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stevae

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i have always had a dual boot system, but recently needed to redo my entire system. so after reinstalling my original os, windows home prem., i tried to put my windows ultimate on a partition, and it refuses to finish the install. every time i try it, approx. 10 min's into it, i get an error message saying that windows can't load all the drivers to complete the installation. what's up with that? i have tried my friends install disc, and i have tried putting all the information on my external as an iso, and loading it. but i still get the same result. this is something new! anyone experience this? any advice is greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
Personally I would start again. Format the drive whilst installing the os and once you've installed home premium then recreate the partitions needed for your particular set up.
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Hi stevae,
just a couple of questions first.

what are your partition sizes and why would you not use 'Ultimate' as your original os rather than the inferior premier edition?

No offence just wondered why...
 
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Ultimate i believe uses about 8GB ish to install, Ultimate is better than the other OS any way so i would just use ultaimte all the way through and keep the other partition for something else.
 
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first off, my partition sizes are 170 gigs each, with four of them. two for os's, one for all net stuff and a final one to put music, games and other interests on. i totally understand that ultimate is the better os, and it will be the main one i will use. however, i want to keep my original setup on the c: drive, as this is what came with the computer, encase i need to send it in or any other problems... i want to put ultimate on the a: drive, and use it as my main os. but each time i try, it gives me the afore mentioned error message, and then says installation will close. i have always had a dual boot system, and never had any problems with loading another os on another partition. this is a recent phenomenon. how can i get past it?

btw, this is a nice machine less than two years old, with dual core processor and 8 gigs of memory. hp dv7
 
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HP dv-7's often have a fat32 partition first for the bloatware and while the original OS may work when you partitioned it into 4 partitions (the max) and if there is the fat32 one that makes 5. Just a passing thought.
 
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Stevae, just out of interest have you run chkdsk to ensure the drive is ok? Also I can't really understand your need to keep windows 7 premier on the machine as this shouldn't make any difference if you have to send the machine back (do you actually still have any warranty left?).

Just in case you really do have to keep both sets of windows give this free app a try: Download EasyBCD 2.1 - NeoSmart Technologies
 
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yes, actually i did. i also keep perfect disc running in the background. i just don't understand why all of the sudden it won't allow me to load another os on another partition.
 
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A picture of your Disk Management window may help clear up the situation. Use the snipping tool to take the picture and attach using the paperclip.
 
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stevae said:
yes, actually i did. i also keep perfect disc running in the background. i just don't understand why all of the sudden it won't allow me to load another os on another partition.
Click to expand...

I just wonder if the partitions themselves have become somewhat corrupted but do try the app above or/and as well as Saltgrasses excellent idea.
 
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kemical said:
I just wonder if the partitions themselves have become somewhat corrupted but do try the app above or/and as well as Saltgrasses excellent idea.
Click to expand...
funny you should mention that, as last night i loaded win 7 sp1, and everything seemed ok. but this morning my computer looked like i didn't have video drivers loaded, and soon i found out that aero wasn't working. looking into it further, my audio is shut off, my video is dimmed, and i am locked out of any functions to change it. i tried to go to disc management, and it wouldn't load. when i tried to load windows ultimate to upgrade my system, thinking it would fix whatever was wrong, it gave me an error message saying windows installation would close because it couldn't get any disc information. what is going on? i am running avast security suite, and superantispyware. neither of which has found any problems.
 
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Personally I would start again. Format the drive whilst installing the os and once you've installed home premium then recreate the partitions needed for your particular set up.
 
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Solution
kemical said:
Personally I would start again. Format the drive whilst installing the os and once you've installed home premium then recreate the partitions needed for your particular set up.
Click to expand...

well, i went to win config utility, and changed the start up to only include bare minimum programs. then i booted into safe mode and tried to find what was hijacking my control. then when i booted back into normal mode, it was fixed. everything came back. i am still not sure what i did to fix it, but it is working fine now. so after work today, i will snap a pic of my disk management, and we can go from there. thanks again to everyone who is helping me. i really appreciate it. i normally have no problems with my pc, but lately several things seem to be happening.
 
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Ok Stevae, glad to hear you got at least some improvement and will check back again when you've posted said screenshot.
 
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Link Removed here is a pic of my disk management. please let me know if you notice anything out of the ordinary. i really want to load the win 7 ultimate on the a: drive. and i am just sooooooo happy to have my system back, up and running. i live in fiji, on a remote island, and this laptop is my entire entertainment here, not to mention my whole life is on here.
 
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Hi Stevae,

wow it's sounds like you live in a beautiful place. Thank you for the screenshot, not much looks out of place apart from some of those partitions looking a little full? Can you back any data up to DVD perhaps and free up some drive space? I believe this is what could be causing you problems and why you didn't have it the first time around..
 
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universe (D) has the least amount of free space, and it still has 49 gigs free. is that not enough free space for a non os partition?
yeah, i am a marine biologist, and i am in a different country every year. this year is fiji and it is spectacularly beautiful. ok, so i think i found the problem and corrected it. if you look at the old picture, the drives on disk 1 are dynamic instead of basic. the a: partition would not let me make it an active primary partition. so since they are relatively the same size, i just switched the a: and d: partitions, by transferring the information that was on the d: partition to the a: partition, and then changing the drive letters and the names. So now it has allowed me to load win 7 ultimate on the new a: drive. I have included a pic. Link Removed so now both os partitions are on the same drive. is there anything wrong with doing this? i was going to then, add a small partition to the other disk, and put my page file on it, so it will be on a different physical drive. i have read that if the page file is on another physical drive, and has it's own partition, it will be much faster. is this true?
 
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Windows needs at least 25% of the HDD/partition to be free, to work effectively regardless of size. I know you weren't really at that level yet but as I rule I try to leave as much free as possible.

As for pagefiles and the like this web page should tell you all you need to know:

Link Removed due to 404 Error
 
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thank you for all of your help. i will look at that page and see how much information i can get from it. thanks again.
 
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well, one problem solved another one presents itself. all of the sudden, one of my external hard drives doesn't want to work, and wouldn't you just know that it was the one with all of my programs on it. course, i'd be upset if any of them died, but i had tons of programs on this one. i don't suppose that anyone here would be able to help me with it, as when i plug it in, it just clicks a few times and then is silent. i get the sound from windows, that a new drive has been detected, but nothing ever shows up in "computer". but what i was hoping for, is any great sites you guys know about with helpful programs on them. for instance, i had a win 7 logon background changer program, which allowed me to put a much nicer pic for the logon background than the terrible one that comes with windows. i could search all of the ones that i remember down, one by one, but that would take forever. so if any of you have any great sites you use, please let me know. thanks again for all of your help.
 
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