Can't install WIN7. setup was unable to create new system partition
- Hi
I would like very much to test WIN7, but I want to keep my XP PRO running.
I read that I can install WIN7 as a dual boot on a different partion.
I am running a Q9450 with 4GB RAM
1 system 500GB SATA disk
1 media 1.5T SATA disk
I have tried the CUSTOM option in order to keep my XP running.
I have tried to install WIN7 on one of my system partions and also on the other 1.5T disk.
In all cases I am getting an error message that setup was unable to create new system partition and I can't install..
All disks are NTFS.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Answers
Hi
I can't complete delete my F 1.5TB drive. I have some stuff on it.
I'll try to look for a program to split my F drive.
Thanks!- Marked As Answer byMark L. FergusonMVP, ModeratorMonday, February 23, 2009 1:43 AM
All Replies
- Just a thought (I haven't encountered this error myself)
Have you tried un-allocating the space that the partition is located on (by deleting the partition), then allowing Win7 to re-allocate the space and designate it as a System partition?
- John- Proposed As Answer bymilo499 Tuesday, August 25, 2009 4:21 PM
- Hi
Thanks for your reply.
I have tried that already and it didn't help
Also, I have tried to format the partion from SETUP and it didn't work too..- Proposed As Answer byle débidouilleur Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:17 PM
- Hi
Why you try to set partition from W7 setup, but not prepari it from win xp and then to install on it?
Whay you mean one of my system drives? If you have only one win xp installed you must have just one system drive.
Is this means volume is spread over fiew HDDs? - Hi
I have 2 disks on my PC
The 1st disk is a 500GB disk, split to 3 partions (Drives C D E)
The 2nd disk is 1.5TB disk, no partions (drive F)
Partion C has XP on it and I want to keep it that way.
I want to have a dual boot and test WIN7.
Partion E in empty and has around free 120GB
Partion F has more the 1TB of free space.
I can't install WIN 7 not on E or F - But why? What happen?
Cannot you just point W7 to install on F as is, without to do anything with partition?- Proposed As Answer bymilo499 Sunday, March 01, 2009 12:22 AM
- Hi
No I can't..
If I point to partion E or F I am getting this message:
setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition - I opened this thread here because I encountered the same problem, but in my case after I tried to do a start from scratch, deleting my old Win 7 partition (which first installed fine).
Can you give some more informations on your setup? Which hardware platform are you using (which chipset), SATA or IDE, which drive mode (eg. AHCI)? Maybe we can track down this problem.
Windows 7 x64 - Gigabyte EP-45-DS3 (Intel P45 chip set), 4GB RAM, ATI 4670 - Sasi4x said:
Hi
No I can't..
If I point to partion E or F I am getting this message:
setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition
Maybe this is problem related to your MB.
What is your MB moddel? Did you have installed latest bios for this MB?
Try to create 50GB NTFS primary partition of the begining of 1.5TB drive and install W7 on it - Sasi4x said:Boot XP. Reduce the size of your XP partition by 25 GB or so. In the resulting unallocated space, create a new partition, format as NTSF, and assign it an unused drive letter. Reboot, and verify that you can see the new partition in "my computer". With XP running and connected to the internet, insert your DVD. When it opens, choose install, clean install. It will show your drives/partitions and ask you to select the partition you want to install into. Make that selection. After downloading some updates, it will indicate that it must reboot to continue the installation in your selected partition. Follow through. When the installation completes, you will be set up to dual boot XP and Win7.
Hi
I would like very much to test WIN7, but I want to keep my XP PRO running.
I read that I can install WIN7 as a dual boot on a different partion.
I am running a Q9450 with 4GB RAM
1 system 500GB SATA disk
1 media 1.5T SATA disk
I have tried the CUSTOM option in order to keep my XP running.
I have tried to install WIN7 on one of my system partions and also on the other 1.5T disk.
In all cases I am getting an error message that setup was unable to create new system partition and I can't install..
All disks are NTFS.
Any ideas?
Thanks! - I t appears the boot disk is missing drivers.
Can you try this out please.
Could you do a media boot
(a) run setup
(b) go through the pages.
(c) Choose custom option
(d) ON the disk config page that follows - determine if you can see both the disks.
If you see only one disk - please DO NOT INSTALL yet.
What might be happening , is the boot disk in the case which has XP on it may be missing some drivers.
On this page, there is a "load driver" button that you could click and you wil need to provide a path to the drivers for the disk controller that can't be seen.
Once you fix that, you can realunch setup with your initial steps and that ought to get you past the point of failure.
Please let us know if that worked. - Hi all
Thanks for your replies.
I am using the Gigabyte EP35-DS3R board. BIOS is V3 from 16/7/2008
Both disks are SATA2 disks.
- OK try what I suggest you:
You must know that everithing have some limit especially if we talk about 32 OS! ( I suppose youtry w7 32bit ) This is why I suggestd you to:
"Try to create 50GB NTFS primary partition of the begining of 1.5TB drive and install W7 on it ."
I am almost sure if you follow my suggestion setup will have no problem Hi
I'll be glad to try it.
How do I create this 50GB primary partion at the begining of my 1.5TB drive?Thanks
- In XP? You delete the existing partition and create 2 new ones.......
Are the previous partitions primary? W7 will not install if not. Is C: the only active partition?
OT: do yourself a favour and do not leave a partition of 1.5 TB anwhere on our system. Anything above 500GB makes data loss a true disaster and backups/defrag/virus checks take forever.
OT2: W7 will re-letter the partitons (it's own partition will be C:, other letters might or might not change). To avoid confusion label all partitions (XP, data, backups, movies what have you, just give them a name)
cyanna - There may be a log file. In my case I found it in something like c:\windows\panther\logs\something.xml. Have a hunt around and you might get lucky.
- Sasi4x said:
Hi
I'll be glad to try it.
How do I create this 50GB primary partion at the begining of my 1.5TB drive?Thanks
Use some software that dial with partitions like partition magic
It is always good idea to backup all important data befor to do partition changes Hi
I can't complete delete my F 1.5TB drive. I have some stuff on it.
I'll try to look for a program to split my F drive.
Thanks!- Marked As Answer byMark L. FergusonMVP, ModeratorMonday, February 23, 2009 1:43 AM
- I know you want to keep your existing data and partition magic will do the job
- Hi
I can't find Partion Magic. Are there any other free programs?
As this is only for testing WIN7 I don't want to spend money on other programs
Thanks- Proposed As Answer bymilo499 Wednesday, April 15, 2009 11:39 PM
- At the W7 partition screen, try ejecting the W7 Dvd from the drive and reinserting it. I know this is wierd but give it a try...It worked for me.
The Story: When I was installing my RAID partition I had to load my raid drivers and was using a USB stick...but was getting that error once the partition became visible. I then tried burning my RAID drivers to another disk - which required me to eject the W7 dvd from the drive to load my drivers. Once the partition became visible (with the error), I ejected my driver disc and re-inserted the W7 dvd. it spun up for a few seconds and the error went away.
Its always the solution you'd never expect that works.... - JKdefrag.....
cyanna - You can use disk manager from windows administrative tools to shrink partition and then to create new partition.
Shrink function preserves existing data on partition.
To open disk manager, right click on my computer and then click manage - You can also use gparted, the Gnu Partition Editor. It's available from SourceForge.
- Hi all
old_newbie - thanks but it did not work for me..
My Experience of Win 7 Loading
1) Assembled a new PC ( C2D 2.66Gigs ; 4 GB DDR2 , 800Mhz ; 250 GB HDD, Intel MoBo DG 43 NB ) ,tossed the Win 7 CD in to the drive. Loading went on smoothly , I only had to type the ‘ Window 7 Beta 32 bit Product key ‘ .
2) Put the MoBo driver CD in to the drive . Most of the Drivers failed to install..Then I tried to install only the chipset driver .and got the indication ‘ OS not Compatible ‘.
3) So installed Win XP-Pro in C: .During the installation did formatting of C: After that loading of the MoBo drivers were automatic and smooth.
4) Then installed Win 7 in the 2nd partition. ( Original D: partition will be shown as C: now.) ie Win 7 is installed in C: as shown but actually it is the original D: partition )
5) Installation of Win 7 was smooth , I had to type the ‘ Window 7 Beta 32 bit Product key ‘.obtained from MS. During the installation Rebooting , removed the Win 7 installation CD from the drive. After the installation was complete , rebooted the computer and found the opening screen displaying the choice of 2 OSs as
Earlier version of Window
Win 7
Chose Win 7 & it booted successfully. Loaded AVG and Adobe 8 from a CD ( programs down loaded earlier and stored in a CD ).
Created a Wireless Network connection manually. I only had to insert the encryptation key used by me. Tried to connect to Net but failed, but selected the option for Window to repair it. Voila , window did the repair & it connected to Net through my wireless router.
6) Using Acronis made an image of this partition ( it is 2.49 GB with Maxi compression ) , stored it in the last partition ( in Win 7 , it is shown as D: , but it is originally the E: partition). The partition where XP is loaded is not not visible.. I need not see this as long as I am in Win 7 as I have directed ‘ My Documents’ of the XP to E: which can be read in Win 7 as well. My HDD is divided in to 3 partitions C:, D:, E:
7) Created an Image backup of C: through Control Panel using Win 7. It created one file of 259 MB and another folder ‘ Window Image Backup’. On internet Explorer it shows size zero , ‘ Contents can not be read’. But on HDD it has a size of 17.65 GB ?? . I am surprised what is it ??. It took 15 minute to create this Image Backup.
8) Switched of the computer and alternatively booted to both the OSs ( Win XP-Pro & Win 7 ) turn by turn and found both are operating well.
9) So I have a Dual Boot system with XP-Pro in the 1st Partition , Win 7 in the 2nd and Datas in the 3rd .
10) In Win 7 , Device Manager the following are shown Yellow
a) PCI Simple communication Controller
b) SM Bus controller
It indicated drivers of these not loaded. Effort to ‘Update Driver ‘ from Win 7 and Net failed.
No extra card is connected to my PCI slots.
11) In Win 7, tried to load the Driver of my Scanner CanoScan LIDE. It will not load at all .( It works well with my Vista Home Premium and XP ) My HP Printer is not compatible with Vista. But it is working well with XP.
I hope some part of these experience will be of some use to some people.
Good luck
- I had the same problem as u do.
What i had to do was to dissconnect the disk i wasen´t installing windows 7 to.
That solved the problem- Proposed As Answer byBrian Borg Friday, May 01, 2009 11:33 PM
- i had this problem.. try this
boot in bios
change 1st boot device and pick hard drive you want to install windows7 on
and voila!- Proposed As Answer byBrian Borg Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:26 PM
- Hi
Thanks for your replies.
As I need to keep my XP PRO to run as my working OS and WIN7 just for testing I need a working dual boot. That means I need to install WIN7 on a regular working mode to be able to switch back to my XP PRO.
I guess if I disconnect one of my disks or change setup in my BIOS it will work. But this will keep me away from my XP.
I read that many people installed WIN7 on a different disk/partion and have a dual boot menu at startup. That is what I was hoping to get. It is not working on my side, at least with this beta version.
Thank you all for your replies. - Dampa,Just wanted to say thanks because your solution worked wonderfully! I had two drives connected, one SATA and one IDE. I unplugged the IDE drive and was able to continue the load without the above error.Thanks again
- Thanks...
Changing the 1st boot device in the bios did the trick... - I had a somewhat same error, as everyone else. I solved it differently. I have IDE and Sata drives in my current setup.
I fixed it by physically disconnecting every drive I did not want windows 7 to install on... and it worked.
Hope this helps! - Guys,
Just wanted share my experiences (partly so that other people can avoid the frustration and also so that I can find this response in the future when I have the same problem and can't remember what I did).
Basically - make sure you disconnect any "external hard drives" you might have - in my case this meant disconnecting my card reader which had a 4gb compact flash card insterted (which the installation thought was another hard drive).
I'm having other problems with the installation at the moment (down to the files being corrupted while transferring from my harddrive to the USB stick I'm using for the install) but I've got over the "setup can't create..." error.
Cheers, - I also had the same problem with two hard drives installing windows 7 RC1 64bit.The Machine specs wereGigabit Nforce4-A939GeForce 9800GTAthalon 64 x2320GB SATA WD drive500GB SATA Samsung driveNo RAIDOnly the 320GB drive showed in the installer and even after letting the installer nuke all the partitions on that drive, it gave the setup was unable to create a system partition error. The boot order in the BIOS was always listing the 320GB drive first.Disconnecting the 500GB drive and trying again worked however.
- Same here!
Setup was unable to create a system partition...
Incredibly frustrated by a dozen or more attempts at a clean installation of Windows 7 RC1 x64 on a brand new system I just built! Win7 RC1 (x64) simply will NOT install in a RAID 0 configuration on my setup. Each time my installation process stalls with the same message:
"Setup was unable to create a system partition or locate an existing partition."
I cannot go any further and I am forced to end my installation and the computer reboots. I have the latest Intel ICH10R SATA RAID drivers on a thumbdrive (instead of crappy floppy 'F6' style) and I've tried loading the ICH10R drivers from thumbdrive AND mb maunfacturer's DVD. The partitioned drives are never recognized properly by the Win7 setup apparently. Although the patitions ARE VISIBLE and I can expand the ADVANCED OPTIONS and delete, format, etc., I receive the same error message above and can go no further. No luck with anything I've tried. I've spent hours and hours scouring the net for answers to this issue. Apparently this message is VERY COMMON but no one has a reliable answer at all.
I have checked, checked and RECHECKED my BIOS settings and have even gone to great lengths to insure that ALL non-essential hardware is disconnected during these install attempts. I have even moved my SATA DVD connection from the ICH10 to onboard Gigaraid SATA controller. The ONLY HDDs installed on the ICH10 are the two velociraptors which are configured by the RAID BIOS and are properly recognized by the system and Win7 installer.
My system:
GIGABYTE EX58-EXTREME mb
Intel i7 920 quad-core processor
12GB DDR3-tri-channel OCZ ram
(2) 300 GB WD Velociraptors in RAID 0 configuration
Samsung SATA DVD burner
Sapphire HD4870 1GB GDDR5 PCIe GPU
((no FDD at all, so using 8GB thumbdrive for F6 drivers))
All additional drives (WD 1TB eSATA drive and other Raptor drives) are NOT connected at this time to avoid causing conflicts!
I have recently read posts that indicate there are 2 log files created during each attempt at installing Windows 7. I found them in the following location: X:\windows\panther\ however, there seems to be no usable information contained in these files to aid in troubleshooting this problem.
Is this a known problem with a workaround, or is M$ even trying to resolve this issue, which is happening to countless individuals trying to perform a clean installation Win 7 RC1 (and Beta build 7000)?
Thanks in advance for any and all help!
Brendon
sidenote: Win7 beta x64 installed and worked great on my old Gigabyte 8i955x Royal system w/ Pentium D (EM64T), 2gb DDR2 and 4 Raptors in Raid 10 using ICH7R controller. That system had a tri-boot configuration that was far more complex than this new system I just built. Perhaps Win7 just doesn't play nicely with certain newest pieces of hardware? I have read about many users successfully installing and using W7 x64 on very similar systems with little to no problems. I'm baffled by this! I'm trying to install W7 64bit and having a million problems. I have XP on an 80GB SATA hard drive, and also have 2 new 250GB disks that I want to set up as RADI1 and put W7 on there. I've tried taking the XP disk out and setting up the raid array and doing a clean install on there, but when I try I get the "setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing one" I have the drivers on a USB stick, and it detects them and everything, but still get the same error. I have also tried splitting the drives into 2 separate ones, and I still get the same error. Any help greatly appreciated.
System
ASUS P6T SE
6GB Corsair RAM
i7 920
GTX295
2 EXCELSTOR 250GB SATA2 HDDs
Generic Sony DVD drive- You can't on that motherboard. You'll have to install on one SATA drive (if you have trouble finding the sata drive even in single mode use the SATA driver in the install/AMD64 directory - yes I know your mobo has an intel processor!), then build the array once you're in W7.
There's a problem with most mobos and RAID: you need PATA RAID drivers and for 64 bit editions of W7 and Vista you also need them to be signed. There's a bunch of moded nvidia raid drivers floating around but none are signed (obviously) and your chipset doesn't support legacy PATA mode for SATA drives anyway (which is what the moded drivers are for)
cyanna - Hi
I needed to do the same thing.
I eventually managed it using some third party software (Partition magic by Symantec, which included Bootmagic).
If you want to try, first back up all your stuff, but not on C: drive! (You may have to re-install XP.)
Run Partition Magic from the CD/DVD, having booted from a Windows 98 boot floppy disk. (After setting the boot sequence in the BIOS.)
Record the exact size of your XP partition then resize it to leave at least 16Gb of free space. If XP no longer boots go back into Partition magic.
Now resize the XP partition to it's original size and give up installing Windows 7.
OR:-
Delete the XP partition then create a new Primary FAT32 partition. Give it a label like WIN XP. Leave a miminimum of 16 Gb of free space after it In the free space create a primary NTFS partition and label it WIN 7. Set the WIN XP partition active and leave WIN 7 hidden.
Boot from the Windows XP disk and reinstall windows.
Install Boot Magic.
Back in Partition Magic set WIN 7 active and hide WIN XP.
Boot from the Windows 7 disk and install Windows on the WIN 7 partition.
If in setup you cannot see any drives you will need to install the browse for and install drivers such as SATA raid drivers, usually on a floppy disk. (I formatted the drive in Disk Options before installing)
Run Partition Magic for the final time and set WIN XP active then unhide WIN 7.
Boot into WIN XP and run Boot Magic.
Setting the boot configuration should be quite logical so I won't insult your intelligence with instructions.
You should now have the dual boot you require.
Incidentally Boot Magic allows you the opportunity to have a separate partition for your documents so that they are not lost if
windows goes belly up, and won't boot (don't trust the "copy partition" to backup C: drive,though, because for Windows XP or later, when you put the copy back it fails to boot).
Good Luck - Hey everyone
I just built this new computer
AMD Phenom II 955 BE
Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P
4GB team elite ram
3x 500gb sata2 drives
1x 320gb sata2 drives
I'm trying to do a fresh install of win7 64bit, and i keep getting this error too, no matter what drive i try installing it on, i've tried deleting my first partitions (not really needed) won't install (on my 500gb), i'm positive i''ve got my 320 gb hdd as first boot preference in bios.
But the problem is, it wont see my 320 gb hdd, but it will show my other 3 500gb hdd's, and an 8mb partition (on disk 3, which is my media disk, therefore am not wiping it) so i'm out of ideas
Any help would be heaps appreciated as i really badly wanna use my new system after going without a computer for a month or so
Marty
PS: i had previously installed win7 x32 on my old computer, then i just put in my new components and it worked, has it working this morning even, have also tried re using xp (wont install :S) - Do all drives appear correctly in BIOS?
Are the drives setup as RAID (shouldn't be)?
Is the disk where you want to install W7 the first boot device?
Is the partition where you want to install W7 the only active partition?
Mysteries are not good when working with computers: what is on the 8mb partition? where did that drive come from?
am at work right now and don't have time to check on your mobo, but google if anybody else has had trouble installing W7 on it......
cyanna - In another thread, I saw a discussion about newer SATA drives. Users were having similar problems.
I think a poster said that some of the newer drives don't act the same way when in IDE, or compatible mode, or something like that.
I don't remember which forum it was in. It could have been one of the Windows 7 ones, or Vista or Server.
If you search for it, you should be able to find it. - I just had this problem myself and finally got it to work after alot of tries.
First i removed the disk i needed to install windows 7 on, connected it to another PC, because I did not have another os installed, and changed the disk/partition from Logical to Primary with the program Partition Magic 8.0 .
I even set the disk/partition to Active in Partition Magic, dont know if its needed but i just did it anyways.. (c: was set to Active in this other PC)
Then i disconnected all other hard-drives and reconnected the target drive, didnt mess anything with RMA etc, but just before installing the OS i chose to format the target partition (have 2 partitions) with the Windows 7 Installer .
I´ve had alot of trouble to install Windows on this model of drive earlier - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB (Model: ST31000340NS, Serial: xxxxx, Firmware: SN06(recently upgraded from SN05)) and I have 4 of them. Really annoying, even had to run one of my pc´s system on a very old ATA-drive and only use my 4 seagates as storage devices.
Could the problem simply have been that the drives were formatted as Logical..?
However, hope anyone finds this information useful.
Cheers! "Could the problem simply have been that the drives were formatted as Logical..?"
YES! You can't install Windows on a logical partition. Also if there already are 3 primary partitons on a Hard drive, windows will not be able to format a 4th one as logical.Might also want to keep in mind that if there already is an active partition on the system, Windows installer will need to be able to write to that partition! (remove encryptions and other security features like Norton and similar)
cyanna- Hi, i had the same problem today.
Installing windows in a Intel C2Quad, with 4gb RAM HP Notebook, it gave me the same error message.
While browsing technet foruns i tried something that i didin't before.
I have a SD slot card to use as Ready Boost.
Just pulling off the card and starting the setup again solved my problem.
Hope you hav Luck.
Cya..
Lucas C. Silva
.Net Developer- Proposed As Answer byshaggerjones Saturday, August 15, 2009 4:42 AM
- This worked for me - an SD card in the built-in reader slot on an Acer Aspire One was causing the problem.
- Yep, I also get this. Dell 755 Optiplex, using ICH9 SATA AHCI Controller. From Windows 7 setup I can see my disk, create and delete partions, all ok. But I get the same problem the others are reporting about not being set as bootable in the BIOS and can't contiune. Very frustrating.
- OK, if I take my Windows 7 Pro RTM DVD and boot from it, I go into setup, delete all my partitions, create a new one, Windows 7.0 installs.
So, I copy the contents of the same DVD to the network. I boot the same PC into WinPE and then run setup. I can delete all my partitions and recreate a new one, but Windows says:
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."
I have no other devices attached or enabled and the HDD is enabled for boot.
I have tried loading all of the SATA drivers I can find (for Windows 7 off the web, even from the Windows 7 wims) and every single one results in:
"The [driver] device driver could not be installed. Contact your vendor for an updated driver".
So, if setup can see my disk and delete and create partitions OK from either a WinPE boot or DVD boot, why doesn't it like the disk from a WinPE boot?
From WinPE, before I even run setup.exe, I can see my HDD via DISKPART, and do whatever I like with it from there, so WinPE can see the disk ok. In fact, I can install XP or Vista from here, just not Windows 7! - I was having the same problem. Ended up having to go download the latest chipset driver from my motherboard mfg website (AMD south bridge 750) and put it on a thumb drive, and load the driver in the windows 7 installation. Now it is installing and I am a happy camper. =)
- Proposed As Answer byBrian Borg Saturday, August 22, 2009 6:42 PM
- Volto,I wish this worked for me . I have a Intel P4 3.4 Extreme with the latest chip set drivers and Flashed the bios to the latest firmware. Still stuck with the same issue.
Maybe it's just a question of if another bios update comes out that will fix it.
Thanks Anyway,
Jimi
Computers don't save time they just reallocate how we spend it. - I have a toshiba laptop with Vista on it. 180 G HD.
When I installed RC 7, I couldn't delete or format my HD. I had two partitions, and toshiba had a small section partitioned that I couldn't touched. So I proceeded with the intallation, because there really wasn't any option to partion or format anything. I just had the 1 partition that I could access.
Once the installtion and updates where done. I look at my HD and I only have 40G of space left. Go figure. I''ve lost 140G's of HD. Since I'm just testing this it isn't a big deal now, but man, what ever happen to "format". "All data will be lost". I'd sure like to see that and then have a clean install.
I can't access "any" of the data on the drive for that 140G's. Just shows it's being occupied.
So now I don't know what's going to happen in the next upgrade, or if I have to go back to Vista when I upgrade.
It's just strange to get this far with an OS and you just can't do a simple "format" and go on with you life. Hi folks, I think I have a solution:
I bought a Dell Mini 10 with WinXP Home installed on it. I promptly created a Windows 7 Install USB using the guide at http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_to_install_windows_7_beta_a_usb_key deleted the Windows XP and Restore partitions, created a new one for the OS and proceeded to trying to install it. As many of you can imagine I had a fun time with everyone's favourite error message. I tried creating the partition manually, formating, not formating, everything I could think of in the Windows RE nothing worked. I was more screwed than anyone else because I couldn't boot into Windows XP (no optical drive). Out of desperation I tried the following.
Instead of making a USB install environment as described in the maximumpc guide above, make the harddrive you want to install it to the install environment. If you can't boot into Windows (as I couldn't), boot off the USB/DVD and try to "repair" the installation. When it doesn't find any windows installs, select the tools and open command prompt. Follow the steps as described in the guide linked above. I wanted to install the OS on C: and the USB drive was D: so in order to copy all the files my command was "robocopy d: c: /e" (/e makes it copy all empty and non-empty directories, I'm not sure if it's necessary but I didn't want to risk it). After that, just boot off your harddrive and install.
One thing: I do NOT guarantee that this will leave your other OS' bootable. In fact, I have a strong feeling that it won't. After that, you can optionally use BCDEdit to get rid of the Windows 7 Installer as a boot option and clean up/delete all the files that you copied over. If you have any questions, please respond to this message, then it'll alert me otherwise I don't think i'll be checking on this thread much.- The hidden partition is our recovery partition. It is made invisible to the operating system and is write protected on purpose as for many users once that partition is damaged they have no means to restore/repair their original installation. It is not a matter of Vista or Windows 7, but a decision made by OEMs.
If you have installed Windows 7 on top of Vista (no reformat or repartitioning) check if you have a folder Windows.old.
cyanna- Proposed As Answer byBrian Borg Monday, August 24, 2009 8:12 PM
Try ACRONIS Disk Editor . Now Home edition is available which is much cheaper. Every one who owns a computer should posses 2 essential S/W , one for disk partition and another for creating the Image of the OS partition ( ACRONIS Image Creator
I find ACRONIS is doing both these functions reliable manner
milo499- Registered here just to reply on this topic.
I've got to say, that solution, suggested by iChakad, changing 1st boot device to "hard drive" and not CD or USB did the trick. I was trying to install Win7 to MSI Wind U100 using external DVD drive.
None of the solutions worked for me, except for the BIOS boot device priority change. This is how you should do it on MSI Wind U100 (should work on other models, I suppose):
1. Enter BIOS by pressing DELETE while booting and change boot device priority as following:
Hard Disk
USB CD-ROM drive
(I've just disabled others since I don't use any of them.)
2. Save changes in BIOS and reboot
3. When MSI logo appears (like it normally does), press F11 several times to open boot device dialog
4. Choose to boot from external DVD drive (or if you're installing Win7 from USB choose USB of course :) But I'm not sure if USB option will work, you've got to try it yourself :) )
5. Follow the steps in Win7 Installation wizard.
6. The error SHOULDN'T appear any more and you SHOULD be good to go.
This is how it worked for me.
P.S. sorry for my language :) Disconnecting other physical drives did the job for me. Thanks
I had the same problem.
Dell OptiPlex 755 with (1) 250GB SATA drive.
Here's what I did to fix the Win 7 install issue:
1) Enter BIOS (F2 at boot screen)
2) Selected Drives --> SATA Operation
3) Changed option from "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" to "RAID Autodetect / ATA"
4) Save/Exit BIOS
5) Rebooted to Win 7 DVD
6) Installed like a charm...
Hope that helps those with a configuration such as mine.
-PsyGrafx- I have a similar setup, but I have two media drives instead of one. I pulled the USB cables from my media drives and everything worked fine. Try pulling the plug from your SATA media drive and see if that gets you any closer. And in case you are wondering, no, that makes no sense to me either, and I can't understand why you would get this error from having another drive plugged in and recognized by the OS.
Good luck... Making sure that the hard drive I was installing to was the first boot disk selected worked for me. Thanks for the thread it saved me a ton of time :)
- use diskpart and set the partition as active. Then the setup continues as expected.
