It seems as though everyone is having slightly similar issues with their installation of Windows 7, but what I am hearing from a number of people is not exactly what is happening when I've tried to install the new OS. First off, I am not doing a clean install, by which I would be wiping my HD. I am putting the Win 7 DVD in the DVD drive and doing an UPGRADE from VISTA Home Premium 32 bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit.
I've followed all the suggested requirements leading up to the actual installation. In fact, I've repeated that process at least 4 times, just prior to each time I've attempted to try once again to get Win 7 to install. My computer passes the requirements for installation of Win 7. In fact, it probably surpasses the requirements.
Four different times, I have sat here for about 3hours each time and tried to UPGRADE my OS to Windows 7. The install starts out fine. It completes the first two stages of the install and begins the third stage. The third stage reaches 21% progress, when a message flashes at the bottom of the screen saying that windows needs to reboot my computer. This would be the very first reboot of the installation process. After about 3-4 minutes, the computer actually reboots. The Windows 7 splash screen will appear, followed by a black screen and a much larger cursor arrow, then the installation window re-appears, although it is much bigger. It would seem that during the reboot, the video settings get messed up.
Briefly, the installation window seems to be waiting for something. The cursor can be moved about, then suddenly it freezes up. At that point, it's clear that the installation has stopped at 21% completion of the third stage of the installation. I get no warning messages or any messages explaining what has happened. Everything just freezes up. No matter how long I might wait, it will not resume. All I can do is press the power button to shut down, then press it again to perform a hard boot up. Once the screen reappears, a message tells me that the installation failed and windows will now roll back to my earlier OS. That's all the explanation I get. There's not indication of what caused the problem, so there's no way to know how to resolve it.
This is just an educated guess on my part but I observed on one of my installation attempts that when the computer performed this "first" reboot, it didn't return the screen back to the point of the installation where it was at 21% of the third stage of the install. Instead, the installation window flipped back to the very first screen of the installation and it momentarily appeared to me as though the computer was about to attempt to boot from the DVD. I didn't permit that to happen because I assumed that booting from the DVD was not the way to Upgrade but rather to wipe the drive and perform a clean installation, which I do not want to do. Again, just guess out loud here, but my computer's BIOS boot sequence begins with the DVD drive, followed by the Hard Drive since I don't have a floppy drive. I'm only guessing here that by changing the boot sequence so that the hard drive boots first, when the installation attempts to do its first reboot, it will seek data from the hard drive, which is where it's been storing all the new files, and PERHAPS, the installation may continue. Because it was booting to the DVD first, it wasn't finding the files that it placed on the hard drive and therefore stopped. This is all just a guess on my part of course. I changed my BIOS settings last night and when I have the time and the patience to try the installation again for the fifth time, I'm hoping that the installation will continue and maybe complete itself.
I've heard many people suggest that you should unplug all your peripherals before you attempt the Upgrade, since that is supposed to help. That makes some sense to me, so I wil try that too. Obviously, I don't think you would want to remove your video card. I don't understand why you'd need to remove or even swap any of your RAM chips. I have a second external DVD burner and two external USB hubs with peripherals attached. I'll try unplugging all of that and my printers as well. My LCD screen, keyboard, mouse and Internet connection will remain attached.
If, after doing all of this, I still can't get Windows 7 to install properly, I am going to put it back in the box and resume using VISTA, which is looking better every day. The sad thing is that I bought two of these Win 7 DVDs when Best Buy was offering them at a reduced price. They'll make nice coasters I guess because I doubt that I'll be able to get my money back. In my line of work, people look to me as an IT person. I can tell you right now that if anyone asks me, I will not suggest that they waste their money on a Windows 7 upgrade right now. Contrary to the hype and the Microsoft ads, what they've sold us is neither easy or intuitive. From what I am reading online, many, many people are having serious problems upgrading to Win 7. I can accept that a percentage of these folks are not experienced enough with software upgrades, but certainly that doesn't apply to all of us. This isn't the first OS upgrade I have done. It's just the worst one I've ever encountered. It seems especially pathetic that we all paid for this OS and yet the best we can do to find answers is to join a forum and spend even more of our time trying to digest feedback from others who are as lost as we are. Why am I not hearing directly from Microsoft that there is a problem with the installation disks? I dropped them an email yesterday, but since my problem didn't reach the level of importance one would hope for, I must wait for two days to hear from them. My guess is that I will only get a computer generated reply that will suggest a number of things to try of a very general nature, but nothing that will actually resolve the problem on the first attempt. You know and I know that we're not the only folks who are having a problem installing Win 7. They have to know it too. If I had known that the upgrade was going ro require me to waste this much time or that I'd have to modify my computer and my peripherals to such a degree, even after their Windows Adviser indicated that my computer was a perfect candidate for the upgrade, I would not have purchased 2 Win 7 DVDs. VISTA isn't perfect, but it works. I would have waited until I bought a new system to try Win 7, rather than waste the $50 that I spend on each disk.