Windows 7 Windows 7 Installation Halts at "Starting Windows"

Ruemer · May 7, 2009

After having solved the problem, I wanted to describe to the community here a problem I was experiencing while doing a fresh install of Windows 7 RC1.

Before I begin, here are my computer's specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz, 775 socket
MSI P35 Platinum, 775 Socket
Lite-On 20X DVDR w/ LiteScribe, SATA connection
MSI Radeon HD 3870
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 3GB RAM
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM hdd, SATA connection
Seagate 300GB 7200RPM hdd, SATA connection (unsure of model)

At the time of installation I only had the 300GB hdd connected via SATA, along with my optical drive. I removed all USB devices except for my keyboard for booting and installation purposes.

Every time I tried installing and booting from the optical drive, it would go through "Windows is Loading Files" and then move to the "Starting Windows" screen. At this point, the optical drive would stop reading, and the screen would sit there. I let it sit over night once, and it never moved.

So I tried installing the OS on the 300GB hdd in a different computer. This didn't help, since the OS wouldn't boot when it was in my computer, obviously because crucial hardware (CPU, mo'bo) had changed. Not a big deal, it was a shot in the dark anyway.

I tried installing from a USB stick, and this gave me an error in the BIOS when trying to boot from it, saying that it could not install the operating system. So I skipped that idea.

I took an optical drive from work (Sony NEC 5200A DVDR) and installed it in my PC via IDE, booted from it, and it installed fine. WHY?! I have no idea. Windows 7 rocks, but for three days I had to fight with it and the hardware in my PC, trying to get them to agree with one another.

Any ideas? I'd like to avoid this problem in the future. I'm just really curious as to what would have caused this; I'd like to learn from the experience, but I feel it was another random shot in the dark at fixing the problem and it just happened to work.

Any suggestions as to what happened would be helpful. My SATA optical drive detailed above still works fine, reads and burns while in the OS without issue.

Sorry for the long post! Thanks

~Ruemer

cmn · May 7, 2009

Ruemer said:
After having solved the problem, I wanted to describe to the community here a problem I was experiencing while doing a fresh install of Windows 7 RC1.

Before I begin, here are my computer's specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz, 775 socket
MSI P35 Platinum, 775 Socket
Lite-On 20X DVDR w/ LiteScribe, SATA connection
MSI Radeon HD 3870
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 3GB RAM
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM hdd, SATA connection
Seagate 300GB 7200RPM hdd, SATA connection (unsure of model)

At the time of installation I only had the 300GB hdd connected via SATA, along with my optical drive. I removed all USB devices except for my keyboard for booting and installation purposes.

Every time I tried installing and booting from the optical drive, it would go through "Windows is Loading Files" and then move to the "Starting Windows" screen. At this point, the optical drive would stop reading, and the screen would sit there. I let it sit over night once, and it never moved.

So I tried installing the OS on the 300GB hdd in a different computer. This didn't help, since the OS wouldn't boot when it was in my computer, obviously because crucial hardware (CPU, mo'bo) had changed. Not a big deal, it was a shot in the dark anyway.

I tried installing from a USB stick, and this gave me an error in the BIOS when trying to boot from it, saying that it could not install the operating system. So I skipped that idea.

I took an optical drive from work (Sony NEC 5200A DVDR) and installed it in my PC via IDE, booted from it, and it installed fine. WHY?! I have no idea. Windows 7 rocks, but for three days I had to fight with it and the hardware in my PC, trying to get them to agree with one another.

Any ideas? I'd like to avoid this problem in the future. I'm just really curious as to what would have caused this; I'd like to learn from the experience, but I feel it was another random shot in the dark at fixing the problem and it just happened to work.

Any suggestions as to what happened would be helpful. My SATA optical drive detailed above still works fine, reads and burns while in the OS without issue.

Sorry for the long post! Thanks

~Ruemer

Hi Ruemer

Sorry for the long post!

Don't feel sorry at all , you should feel good about posting something anyone can read and understand because it had all the ingridients needed -What, where , and how questions are fully answered by the Total Specification, the detailed explanation of the problem experienced, all the steps taken to solve the issue and finally how the problem was resolved. It is splendid.
I believe by a process of elimination you have focused the problem on to the SATA LiteOn DVD RW drive whose full specification is given in your post.

Now that you got the functioning Win 7 RC and the Liteon DVD-RW drive seems to be working well in all other read write functions, can you try to install the same system using the same DVD to another partition for a trial to see if problem can be duplicated? I don't have the exact LiteOn model to do a test.
Thank you for enlightening me.

Ruemer · May 7, 2009

cmn,

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll give it a shot tonight to see if it happens to work.

The install did start fine on my lap top (what I'm currently using) though I never actually did the install. That was the first thing I tried when I couldn't get the install to start. I put the DVD in my lappy here, and poof, it started fine, so I just cancelled out of the install.

Thanks again for the suggestion. I'll let you know how it goes.

~Ruemer

dabooga · May 7, 2009

Ruemer said:
After having solved the problem, I wanted to describe to the community here a problem I was experiencing while doing a fresh install of Windows 7 RC1.

Before I begin, here are my computer's specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz, 775 socket
MSI P35 Platinum, 775 Socket
Lite-On 20X DVDR w/ LiteScribe, SATA connection
MSI Radeon HD 3870
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 3GB RAM
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM hdd, SATA connection
Seagate 300GB 7200RPM hdd, SATA connection (unsure of model)

At the time of installation I only had the 300GB hdd connected via SATA, along with my optical drive. I removed all USB devices except for my keyboard for booting and installation purposes.

Every time I tried installing and booting from the optical drive, it would go through "Windows is Loading Files" and then move to the "Starting Windows" screen. At this point, the optical drive would stop reading, and the screen would sit there. I let it sit over night once, and it never moved.

So I tried installing the OS on the 300GB hdd in a different computer. This didn't help, since the OS wouldn't boot when it was in my computer, obviously because crucial hardware (CPU, mo'bo) had changed. Not a big deal, it was a shot in the dark anyway.

I tried installing from a USB stick, and this gave me an error in the BIOS when trying to boot from it, saying that it could not install the operating system. So I skipped that idea.

I took an optical drive from work (Sony NEC 5200A DVDR) and installed it in my PC via IDE, booted from it, and it installed fine. WHY?! I have no idea. Windows 7 rocks, but for three days I had to fight with it and the hardware in my PC, trying to get them to agree with one another.

Any ideas? I'd like to avoid this problem in the future. I'm just really curious as to what would have caused this; I'd like to learn from the experience, but I feel it was another random shot in the dark at fixing the problem and it just happened to work.

Any suggestions as to what happened would be helpful. My SATA optical drive detailed above still works fine, reads and burns while in the OS without issue.

Sorry for the long post! Thanks

~Ruemer

yea seems i got a similar problem, i recently got the Windows 7 RC, i burnt it, booted up, it passed the 'Windows Loading' 'Starting Windows' phases but then freezes on the first screen after which uses a colourful, blue wallpaper and when the mouse cursor appears, i can move the mouse but the cd drive & hard drive have stopped loading. I am currently using XP SP3 and any help would really be appreciated, Thanks.

UPDATE:I read in a few other threads this could be caused by the DVD drive im using, i replaced it and now when it reachs that same screen the mouse cursor shows the loading symbol for 5 seconds but then stops, nothing then seems to happen, i look at my HDD LED and it flashs every 2 seconds with a quik multi flash every 5 single flashs, if that made any sense, i hope you can help, Thanks.

cmn · May 7, 2009

dabooga said:
yea seems i got a similar problem, i recently got the Windows 7 RC, i burnt it, booted up, it passed the 'Windows Loading' 'Starting Windows' phases but then freezes on the first screen after which uses a colourful, blue wallpaper and when the mouse cursor appears, i can move the mouse but the cd drive & hard drive have stopped loading. I am currently using XP SP3 and any help would really be appreciated, Thanks.

UPDATE:I read in a few other threads this could be caused by the DVD drive im using, i replaced it and now when it reachs that same screen the mouse cursor shows the loading symbol for 5 seconds but then stops, nothing then seems to happen, i look at my HDD LED and it flashs every 2 seconds with a quik multi flash every 5 single flashs, if that made any sense, i hope you can help, Thanks.

Please post your system Specification in the same format the previous poster has done. that will give us all the information needed to know your setup.

Please post your System Specifications using the format similar to the original poster of this thread. Unless you have the exact same Computer hardware as the original poster, even if you have same problem , the throubleshoot can be different. Your post is not ignored but there are no data to go on.
A lot of us are happy and willing to help if you can help us with information about the computer you have the problem. Please read the FAQ on this Forum to help you as to how best to post for help. Here is a link in case you miss the FAQ on top of this page by any chance : Link Removed due to 404 Error
Thank you and good luck.

George_Serbia · May 8, 2009

I have the similar problem with installing Windows 7. I downloaded 32-bit iND's 'version' from RS links, and it gave me an error during the installation, when I tried to install Win 7 .iso image mounted by Alcohol 120%. At first everything ran smoothly and then there was an error "file missing or corrupted", so I deleted it. I said "What the hell!? I'll download the RC1 7100 version from MS site,and their server!!" Tonight the original .iso finished downloading, and I tried to install Windows 7 RC1 7100 Build 32-bit on an empty 16GB partition formatted in NTFS system. I ran it from Win XP SP3 - I mounted the .iso image, everything went fast and smoothly, it recognized the HDDs, and all 8 partitions on HDDs, I chose empty 16GB F partiton, and when it came to the second phase of installing - "Extending Windows files", it came to 27%, and there popped-up this window which said "Your computer needs to restart", it restarted and continued the installation, came to the well-known black screen with flashy Windows 7 logo with "Windows Starting", and it just stood there for 20-30 minutes, and nothing happened..I tried to install it again a few times, plugging out my speakers, Logitech webcam on USB, even my mouse and ethernet cable from Sagem F@ast 1200 ADSL modem, and still nothing...I burned iND's .iso on DVD and I tried yesterday to install Win7 but in both cases - booting from BIOS or from Win XP - the results were the same as today...It just comes to the second phase "Extending Windows files" comes to 27%, restarts and nothing, and on F partition there is a 2.06GB folder "$WINDOWS.~LS"...

My PC has these components (you can see them in my profile, but nevertheless) :

AMD Athlon XP,Barton core 2500+ (1.83 GHz, not overclocked)
Epox EP8 KRAI-X (VIA Apollo KT 600 chipset)
1 GB RAM DDR400MHz, Dual Channel (2x512MB Kingston + Transcend)
PowerColor Radeon HD2600Pro AGP 8x (not overclocked), the newest Catalyst 9.3 AGP Hotfix installed
3 HDDs (1 ATA WD 160GB, 2 SATA - Maxtor 160GB and WD 80GB, with 8MB cache,7200 rpm)
LG DVD-RAM GSA-4160B
Audigy 2 LS
PSU - Xilence 500W
Main OS - Windows XP + SP3
Philips 107S61 17" Flat CRT monitor, connected to HD2600Pro with VGA to DVI adapter

I tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, PCLOS 2007, Vixta 3D, MS Vista 32-bit Ultimate, and I have Mandriva Linux 2009 on 2 CDs, 32-bit version, but I haven't tried it yet..I am a Windows "power" user so to speak, I bought my first PC in March 2003, this PC is my second one with a few differences from the original one, but I didn't experienced such a hard time installing and using these Linux distros. If you are PC literate and know the basics of software and hardware functioning, you shouldn't have many problems, but if someone doesn't know english that's another problem, because there is a lot of literature about Linux on the net and it's mainly in English. But being an English teacher it's not a big deal for me...
But I don't know why Windows 7 won't install on my machine, I haven't got the slightest idea, and it drives me mad...

cmn · May 8, 2009

George_Serbia said:
I have the similar problem with installing Windows 7. I downloaded 32-bit iND's 'version' from RS links, and it gave me an error during the installation, when I tried to install Win 7 .iso image mounted by Alcohol 120%. At first everything ran smoothly and then there was an error \"file missing or corrupted\", so I deleted it. I said \"What the hell!? I'll download the RC1 7100 version from MS site,and their server!!\" Tonight the original .iso finished downloading, and I tried to install Windows 7 RC1 7100 Build 32-bit on an empty 16GB partition formatted in NTFS system. I ran it from Win XP SP3 - I mounted the .iso image, everything went fast and smoothly, it recognized the HDDs, and all 8 partitions on HDDs, I chose empty 16GB F partiton, and when it came to the second phase of installing - \"Extending Windows files\", it came to 27%, and there popped-up this window which said \"Your computer needs to restart\", it restarted and continued the installation, came to the well-known black screen with flashy Windows 7 logo with \"Windows Starting\", and it just stood there for 20-30 minutes, and nothing happened..I tried to install it again a few times, plugging out my speakers, Logitech webcam on USB, even my mouse and ethernet cable from Sagem F@ast 1200 ADSL modem, and still nothing...I burned iND's .iso on DVD and I tried yesterday to install Win7 but in both cases - booting from BIOS or from Win XP - the results were the same as today...It just comes to the second phase \"Extending Windows files\" comes to 27%, restarts and nothing, and on F partition there is a 2.06GB folder \"$WINDOWS.~LS\"...

My PC has these components (you can see them in my profile, but nevertheless) :

AMD Athlon XP,Barton core 2500+ (1.83 GHz, not overclocked)
Epox EP8 KRAI-X (VIA Apollo KT 600 chipset)
1 GB RAM DDR400MHz, Dual Channel (2x512MB Kingston + Transcend)
PowerColor Radeon HD2600Pro AGP 8x (not overclocked), the newest Catalyst 9.3 AGP Hotfix installed
3 HDDs (1 ATA WD 160GB, 2 SATA - Maxtor 160GB and WD 80GB, with 8MB cache,7200 rpm)
LG DVD-RAM GSA-4160B
Audigy 2 LS
PSU - Xilence 500W
Main OS - Windows XP + SP3
Philips 107S61 17\" Flat CRT monitor, connected to HD2600Pro with VGA to DVI adapter

I tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, PCLOS 2007, Vixta 3D, MS Vista 32-bit Ultimate, and I have Mandriva Linux 2009 on 2 CDs, 32-bit version, but I haven't tried it yet..I am a Windows \"power\" user so to speak, I bought my first PC in March 2003, this PC is my second one with a few differences from the original one, but I didn't experienced such a hard time installing and using these Linux distros. If you are PC literate and know the basics of software and hardware functioning, you shouldn't have many problems, but if someone doesn't know english that's another problem, because there is a lot of literature about Linux on the net and it's mainly in English. But being an English teacher it's not a big deal for me...
But I don't know why Windows 7 won't install on my machine, I haven't got the slightest idea, and it drives me mad...

Thank you George_Serbia for the details. I was looking at Epox support page for this board's drivers and could not even know if it can support VISTA (a surrogate for Win7) as there was no downloadable or viewable system SPECS. I get this message:

Here are the results of your query.Sorry, no files found.

I guess it might be a pre-2005 board and probably does not support VISTA and its available BIOS are dated

03/04/2005 Bios
12/31/2004 Bios

Do you have Vista drivers for them?
My guess is Win 7 is failing to recognize & communicate with system toward the end for want to drivers and that might be the cause of your failure to install. As you know unlike LINUX where you can watch most if not the whole of setup process through text by pressing ESC during setup and we can pretty much know what happens Windows does everything behind the scene and there is very little we can acertain if something goes wrong during setup. If a BSOD or STOP ERROR occurs it's all Greek and Latin to us and may need MSKB search for some clues to see what would all those 00000000 and LETTERS mean!

George_Serbia · May 8, 2009

The funny thing is that I had similar problem with Vista Ultimate 32-bit, it waited for some time, BUT at the end it installed, and I actually used Vista on my PC for some time...This Windows 7 has to be faster and better than Vista, better in recognizing hardware, and so I wonder why it doesn't install and work..

A few minutes ago I found this:

Link Removed - Invalid URL

What do you think,should I try to download this and install? It is a problem for me because I have never updated the BIOS before, and I don't want to screw something up, because if I do, I'll damage my MoBo and it'll be a problem to find a good used KT600 or even better nForce2 Ultra 400 MoBo..I had the famous Abit NF7-S v2.0 MoBo, but the overcurrent killed it so I found only this VIA crap, it's not a crap but compared to that Abit..UHHH it was such a great MB..

cmn · May 8, 2009

George_Serbia said:
The funny thing is that I had similar problem with Vista Ultimate 32-bit, it waited for some time, BUT at the end it installed, and I actually used Vista on my PC for some time...This Windows 7 has to be faster and better than Vista, better in recognizing hardware, and so I wonder why it doesn't install and work..

A few minutes ago I found this:

Download Epox EP-8KRAI-X Bios 5304- Supported CPU: Socket A AMD AthlonXP/Athlon/Duron/Sempron ProcessorsChipset: KT600 + VT8237FSB:. - 4PCSoft.com

What do you think,should I try to download this and install? It is a problem for me because I have never updated the BIOS before, and I don't want to screw something up, because if I do, I'll damage my MoBo and it'll be a problem to find a good used KT600 or even better nForce2 Ultra 400 MoBo..I had the famous Abit NF7-S v2.0 MoBo, but the overcurrent killed it so I found only this VIA crap, it's not a crap but compared to that Abit..UHHH it was such a great MB..

There are a lot of False ads in the Internet that take you for a "clicking merry-go-round ride" and sometimes loading your computer with Adware! So beware of such players. I don't know whether this outfit 4pcsoft.com is a genuine site or one of those Adware traps. If it is not from your Motherboard manufacturer , avoid going for any software/Bios Update is my cautious advice. If it is from a major Chipset manufacturer, you can go for drivers circumventing the System board manufacturers.

sgtarky · May 17, 2009

I have a similar issue, using a sata liteon dvd. I would just have a black screen and a pointer. depending on mother you need to set the sata settings to legacy, that's what dells say. I have gigabyte mb and I set the sata settings from AHCI to IDE the install appears to be working now but it is very slllllllllllllloooooooooow.

oh well that didnt work. I spent hours doing various things. I even got an IDE dvd drive and I am installing it on a ide harddrive. X64. upgraded to f8a bios for gigabyte .I took all the memory out but one stick and hooked up a monitor to the db15 connector, removed tv tuner still nothing. the disc installs on my older hp laptop within 25 min.

Morpheus101 · May 18, 2009

I had a simalar problem using a ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe MB. It seems that I need to ENABLE the Memory Remap in the BIOS to get past this problem. I was told by ASUS that the MB didn't support 64bit Vista. I have no idea why but I was able to get Windows 7 to install and load almost all my software. I think only one package that failed. The Memory Remap has something with displacing memory that overlaps the PCI memory? When I transfer a single 30Meg file to a USB drive the files gets almost complete and then the screen does all this blinking and pausing. I eventually have to reboot. The file does complete. I'm guessing that the older MB are going to have problems with Windows 7.

I have yet to try 32bit. My Vista x86 is running absolutly flawless. So much better then XP. The upgrade to Windows 7 would only be worth it to go from 32bit Vista to 64bit Windows 7. IMHO I think it's a waste of time and money to upgrade from a GOOD install of Vista x86 to Windows 7 x86. For the little in speed increase it's just not worth it. However if I was Rrunning XP then it would be essential to upgrade.

your_eviltwin · May 18, 2009

just doing a quick replay as i'm short on time and was looking for my post on this problem, i fixed the same crash where all you see is the "windows starting" screen (i also saw a red dot above it some place.) by means of a simple bios update.

George_Serbia · May 20, 2009

I asked a question a week ago and I got the answer, BUT....Two of my friends installed Windows 7 32-bit on the following PCs:

PC 1:

AMD Athlon 1800+
ASUS A7V8X-X (Apollo VIA KT400 chipset)
512MB RAM
500GB HD on IDE
GF 7300GT AGP

He managed to install Windows 7 32-bit build 7057(NOT the RC version), and it installed properly and recognized the hardware without problems,on the clean partition...No BIOS update or any changes to BIOS itself..

PC2

AMD Athlon 2500+ (same as mine)
ASUS Asus A7N8X-X (nForce2 400 chipset)
768MB RAM
ATI 9550 128MB

He managed to install Windows 7 RC1 32-bit, installation took max. 30 minutes, hardware recognized, and also no BIOS changes..

And now how is this !!!?? Why can't I install Windows 7 32-bit RC1 properly on my PC??? !!!!

patricktoh · May 20, 2009

I had met with the same problem and after I had coastered 4 DVD-Rs of different brands, I finally circumvented this problem by removing 1 stick of ram (I started with 4 sticks of 1Gb DDR2-800). That allowed the installation to complete and run successfully.

However, when I put that 1 stick of ram back, bootup freezes at "Starting Windows" stage again. Had not yet been able to find a solution for that however and getting mildly annoyed because I downloaded the 64bit version just so I can have access to all 4GB of ram. Ram is not the issue because I had swapped out the 1 piece with another still on the motherboard and there were no problems as long as I kept it at 3GB.

I'm using Windows 7 RC btw.

Windows 7 Windows 7 Installation Halts at "Starting Windows"

Ruemer

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