Windows 7 System freezes when selecting to boot Windows 7 from CD or USB drive..going crazy

sm40oztofreedom

New Member
So I was one of the lucky ones to download windows 7 64 bit pro student upgrade only to have it not install upgrading from 32 bit xp. I read about how you can create a bootable USB or DVD from the files. After doing this i created my windows 7 ISO and made my bootable USB stick. So everything works and I get into the windows 7 install. I have 3 hard drives and when it came up to pick which partition to install it to i wasnt 100% sure because of 2 similar hard drive sizes. I picked the one i thought it would be which is not my primary hard drive with windows just an extra one for storage, which happened to have an old copy of windows on it. When the install started I noticed it was trying to copy files from my old obsolete version of windows XP. As soon as i noticed this i canceled the installation, and exited out so I could restart it and format the partition first. This is where i am now stuck. No matter what i do i cannot get it to boot from a DVD or USB stick. I can press nothing and it boots to XP fine and everything works as it used to (as im typing this from my computer on XP now). When i hit f10 to go to the boot menu and hit boot from USB the light on the USB lights up for about a second then my computer freezes. I tried this about 50 times with diff ports and it freezes every time. Then i figured maybe if i make a boot DVD that will work.. and again the dvd light lights up and computer freezes. Then i figured it was the files on the DVD or USB so i tried booting up from my old XP recovery DVD. Still freezes..Doesnt get anywhere past selecting the boot from DVD option. Ive tried everything at this point and give up. Please help me. I want 7!
 
First, turn your computer off and disconnect the power to the hard drives you do not want to install windows 7 to.

Do you know how to clear your CMOS? Near the battery on your motherboard there are 3 pins. There is a jumper connecting two of them. With your system off, move the jumper to the middle pin and the one that it is not on. After about 15 seconds put it back. If you can't find the pins you can take the battery out and turn it over and wait a few seconds then put it back in right.

When you reboot press the key that goes into your Bios menu. Set your computer to boot FIRST from the USB. Save the settings then it will reboot and it should find the USB stick and go to the install. Then do a custom install and format the drive and install.
 
First, turn your computer off and disconnect the power to the hard drives you do not want to install windows 7 to.

Do you know how to clear your CMOS? Near the battery on your motherboard there are 3 pins. There is a jumper connecting two of them. With your system off, move the jumper to the middle pin and the one that it is not on. After about 15 seconds put it back. If you can't find the pins you can take the battery out and turn it over and wait a few seconds then put it back in right.

When you reboot press the key that goes into your Bios menu. Set your computer to boot FIRST from the USB. Save the settings then it will reboot and it should find the USB stick and go to the install. Then do a custom install and format the drive and install.

I will try this when i get home cause i am at work..but just a quick update.
I dont know if this had anything to do with it but previously i had a dual boot windows and linux (opensuse) and my computer boots up to GRUB. I never use linux so i deleted the partition from windows. Once i restarted i was left with the error 22 and couldnt boot to windows because there was no grub. I got my windows xp install dvd to boot up and get to the recovery console to do the fixmbr. Now when I tried to boot from the windows 7 DVD i created it saw it but wouldn't boot gave me an error, and trying from the USB stick still freezes. I just don't get it because the USB and DVD are clones of each other and the USB worked the first time i tried.

Will clearing my CMOS make me lose alot of settings? I havent performed that operation before.
 
First, turn your computer off and disconnect the power to the hard drives you do not want to install windows 7 to.

Do you know how to clear your CMOS? Near the battery on your motherboard there are 3 pins. There is a jumper connecting two of them. With your system off, move the jumper to the middle pin and the one that it is not on. After about 15 seconds put it back. If you can't find the pins you can take the battery out and turn it over and wait a few seconds then put it back in right.

When you reboot press the key that goes into your Bios menu. Set your computer to boot FIRST from the USB. Save the settings then it will reboot and it should find the USB stick and go to the install. Then do a custom install and format the drive and install.


also what is the purpose of disconnecting my current hard drive with xp. I would like to dual boot xp and 7 preferably. at least until i make sure everything is good and transferred
 
also what is the purpose of disconnecting my current hard drive with xp. I would like to dual boot xp and 7 preferably. at least until i make sure everything is good and transferred


If you disconnect hard drives that you don't want to install Windows to..... then you have 0 risks of accidentally formatting the wrong one. It's way way way easier than you think..... I almost did it because:

On my system... my os is on drive c: and I have backup hard drives D: and F:

You would think that when you boot to the install disk you would format and install to C:

BUT OH NO >>>NO NO NO because the drive sequence is determined by the system and the bios only rearranges the boot priorities.


Luckily ... BEFORE I formatted C: I did a dir on c: and noticed it was my backup drive ... which is only 500 gb... not 750 like my normal drive C:

NOW when I test an install to find out if a trick or tip works ... I ALWAYS unplug every drive except the one that I'm SURE I want to install to.... that way you'll probably see me her tomorrow and the next day.
 
Will clearing my CMOS make me lose alot of settings? I havent performed that operation before.

You'll probably have to reset your boot priority but I doubt changing it to factory default will change anything else. You would remember if you had to tweak your bios features to get a device to load.
 
If you disconnect hard drives that you don't want to install Windows to..... then you have 0 risks of accidentally formatting the wrong one. It's way way way easier than you think..... I almost did it because:

On my system... my os is on drive c: and I have backup hard drives D: and F:

You would think that when you boot to the install disk you would format and install to C:

BUT OH NO >>>NO NO NO because the drive sequence is determined by the system and the bios only rearranges the boot priorities.


Luckily ... BEFORE I formatted C: I did a dir on c: and noticed it was my backup drive ... which is only 500 gb... not 750 like my normal drive C:

NOW when I test an install to find out if a trick or tip works ... I ALWAYS unplug every drive except the one that I'm SURE I want to install to.... that way you'll probably see me her tomorrow and the next day.

cool ill definitely do that and thanks for the help. do you know why this would happen in the first place?.. my boot from usb or cd freezing that is? and also with the other hard drive unplugged will it still go to dual boot when i plug it back in? Sorry im pretty good with computers but very new to dual booting.
 
cool ill definitely do that and thanks for the help. do you know why this would happen in the first place?.. my boot from usb or cd freezing that is? and also with the other hard drive unplugged will it still go to dual boot when i plug it back in? Sorry im pretty good with computers but very new to dual booting.


Where are you creating the dual boot from? I'm only familiar with the Boot menu that is created on my primary / host os... when it boots I can boot into any drive. I have well documented these steps in my blogs.
 
Where are you creating the dual boot from? I'm only familiar with the Boot menu that is created on my primary / host os... when it boots I can boot into any drive. I have well documented these steps in my blogs.

Well basically as of now i just have xp installed on one hard drive. I'm installing Windows 7 on my other hard drive. I assume once 7 is installed and i restart my computer it would give me a choice of which to boot every time. If there's something else i have to do let me know. Also I usually make a small partition just for windows and leave the rest for programs. Do you recommend this? And how much would be enough space with Windows 7 Pro 64 bit? I was going to do 30-50 gigs to allow room for service packs and whatnot
 
Well basically as of now i just have xp installed on one hard drive. I'm installing Windows 7 on my other hard drive. I assume once 7 is installed and i restart my computer it would give me a choice of which to boot every time. If there's something else i have to do let me know. Also I usually make a small partition just for windows and leave the rest for programs. Do you recommend this? And how much would be enough space with Windows 7 Pro 64 bit? I was going to do 30-50 gigs to allow room for service packs and whatnot


I have writen a list of reasons I dislike partitions. They are risky and make a simple system more compleX... and the price of hard drives is so cheap these days.... even deals for 5 CENTS per GB are around. $40 or $50 if you don't have a spare hard drive... is so cheap compared to the headaches, data loss and frustrations that MANY MANY people have to deal with. Just look at all the questions here about "my partition...bla bla bla" Seems at least 1 our of every 3 problems are related to partitions. Gezz... I just realized I have climbed back on my soapbox.

My blogs clearly show 3 commands you can run from your command prompt to set up your windows 7 multi-boot menu. It is NOT automatic. There is also a program called easybcd that can automatically set up a multi-boot menu but it does not consistently work for me.
 
I have writen a list of reasons I dislike partitions. They are risky and make a simple system more compleX... and the price of hard drives is so cheap these days.... even deals for 5 CENTS per GB are around. $40 or $50 if you don't have a spare hard drive... is so cheap compared to the headaches, data loss and frustrations that MANY MANY people have to deal with. Just look at all the questions here about "my partition...bla bla bla" Seems at least 1 our of every 3 problems are related to partitions. Gezz... I just realized I have climbed back on my soapbox.

My blogs clearly show 3 commands you can run from your command prompt to set up your windows 7 multi-boot menu. It is NOT automatic. There is also a program called easybcd that can automatically set up a multi-boot menu but it does not consistently work for me.


sooo did everythgin you said with the CMOS. now when i put in my bootable usb it just says "Floppy diskette seek failure"

i also installed new ram but i dont think that has to do with it..any more ideas?
 
sooo did everythgin you said with the CMOS. now when i put in my bootable usb it just says "Floppy diskette seek failure"

i also installed new ram but i dont think that has to do with it..any more ideas?

Can't you disable the Floppy drive? Someone reported that his system was very slow until he disabled floppy in his bios.


At least it looks like you are getting a different error message.... If you do this kind of trouble shooting enough you'll start to see that as a sign of progress.

I'm a bit conserned that a computer with a floppy drive may need new firmware flashed to the bios to deal with the internal features of Windows 7.
 
Hey i fixed everything..had to disable the floppy drive, since of course i don't have one. I got everything installed. I originally made a 50 gig partition for windows but it was giving me tons of problems when i changed the default install paths in the registry. It wouldn't find any windows files in the system32 folder. So i just extended the partition and made it the full drive. Thanks for all the help i really appreciate it.
 
You must have had the XP drive connected during 7 install.

That's fine - the 7 boot critical files are on the XP partition for future refernce.
 
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