Windows 7 Why Wont Windows 7 64 Bit Finish Installing

[Ramone]

Cant get Windows 7 64 Bit to finish its installation.Gets to the first reboot.Thats as far as it gets.It wont finalize the installation.From there it goes into a reboot loop every 30 sec.Reboots into the Safe Screen window.None of the functions in the window work.Did a Custom Install from the DVD several times.No luck.
Windows 7 32 Bit installed and ran fine.
Did a repair from the DVD as well.Solved nothing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Asus P5W DH Deluxe (MB)
Core 2 Quad CPU ([email protected] GHz)
ATI X1600 Pro Video card
Sound Blaster Sound Card
Ram 4GB

 

[Ramone]

Still not having any luck. Windows 7 keeps rebooting into the Windows Error Recovery Window(Continuous Loop).
Wont finalize the setup.
Could it be a hardware issue? A defective DVD?

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, if the install does not complete, Win 7 will not normally reboot into a recovery scenario. How far exactly does it get. Are you trying to install over the 32 bit?

I would suggest, starting with a clean hard drive, or at least use the clean install option so the drive is reformatted. Once you do that , where does the install freeze. If that doesn't help, disconnect any external devices and try again. What type of video connection do you have?

If you get a chance, during a recovery operation, boot into a command window and look for a $**** folder with a setupact.log file in it. If you can read that, look close to the end and see if anything is mentioned about why the install failed. This may not be easy to do, so if you cannot, do not worry.

 

[Ramone]

At the moment the computer has Windows 7 32 bit installed which installs and runs fine. I do a "Clean" install from the DVD. I format the hard drive.
It freezes the first time it says "Starting Windows" right after the first reboot. From there it goes into a continuous loop. Wont finish the setup.My monitor is connected via a VGA cable.

 

[Saltgrass]

One of the big differences between the 32 and 64 bit versions is the drivers. Your scenario seems to suggest one of your devices is not working well with x64.

If you burned the install DVD, it could be that.

I would probably remove the Sound Blaster card and try, or look for a replacement video card to try, even though it seems to be compatible. Unplug any unnecessary external devices.

Are you loading any special drivers, like RAID?

 

[Ramone]

Thanks for your thoughts. No its an original DVD. Already tried removing the soundcard. Cant remove the video card. Dont have a replacement. No Raid drivers.
Really frustrating. Its not good when you have to start pulling out components. Been installing Windows since 3.1.DOS before that.
Thanks again.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I don't know if this is the solution to your problem but it sounds to me that it has to be a driver problem.

Have you tried to do the install with absolutely nothing but the mouse monitor and keyboard connected?

The point that it freezes suggests that it's when it tries to switch from the VGA drivers to your video card drivers.

Perhaps if you downloaded the correct 64 bit drivers for your hardware and then integrated them into an install disk it would finish installing.

This seems like a lot of hassle, but it's the only thing I can think of.

How To Integrate Drivers Into Windows 7 Installation Disc


Mike