I was upgrading my hard drive to a SSD. When trying to do a clean install of Win7 I could not get past the first screen. I had no mouse or keyboard. I did not leave the old hard drive plugged in. Long story short I gave up on the install and plugged in my old hard drive. Even though i completely shutdown the computer it seems that the windows install files were still in memory. When I turned the computer back on it was making changes to the registry and other settings. After a very long time it eventually booted to the desktop and everything seems ok but why was it making changes to my original installation and is there any way to remove the install files from the memory? Shutting down and unplugging the computer doesn't seem do it.
Did you boot from DVD Drive? You need mouse and Keyboard during installation. - Why did you remove those? Try re-installing with keyboard and Mouse connected. FYI-Memory is VOLATILE - once rebooted everything gets erased. Seems you had problem with your HDD cable or some bad sectors on your HDD - Reason for Long time taken to boot after reconnect.
Thanks everyone for their response. @cengizhan Sorry about that. I didn't realize it was in the Windows 10 thread. @Engineer2k2 Did you boot from DVD Drive? You need mouse and Keyboard during installation. - Why did you remove those? I first booted from a usb flash drive and I was using a microsoft wireless usb mouse and a usb keyboard. I didn't get a response of either one. I then booted from a DVD and the same thing happen. No keyboard or mouse. When I plugged in my old hard drive and got to the desktop, both the mouse and keyboard were working fine. @Engineer2k2 FYI-Memory is VOLATILE - once rebooted everything gets erased I guess it was just a coincidence that windows was making changes to the original installation. It's just kind of strange that I never had a problem with it.
I have seen Windows 7 installs hang, then pick up where they left off after a reboot. The boot process is actually set to relaunch the setup program if it has not yet finished. It may have just finished the install on the ssd, and not really have anything to do with you plugging in your old hdd. Do you know which drive it is now booting from, or can you change the bios boot order now to put the ssd ahead of the hdd?
It is booting from the old hard drive now. I never had both hard drives plugged in at the same time. I still don't. I tried installing win7 to the ssd twice. First with a flash drive and then dvd. I got to the first screen and couldn't get any further. I don't know why the mouse and keyboard don't work. There is not even a cursor on the screen. I just gave up, turned off the computer, and plugged in my old hard drive. When I turned it back on that's when windows started changing the settings.
What USB ports are the mouse an key plugged into, what are your USB BIOS settings, how did you see making changes to the registry, what keys were changed.
What you are describing doesn't make a lot of sense. If you never had both ssd and hdd plugged in at the same time, any attempted fresh install on ssd could not possibly alter the windows installation on the hdd. There is a missing piece to this puzzle somewhere.
The mouse and keyboard were plugged into the back of the desktop. The USB ports are soldered directly to the motherboard. I don't know the bios settings but they were never changed from the first time I installed Windows. When I turned the computer back on, the changes were being made so fast you could hardly read anything. It said something about registry and underneath that, it was making the changes but to fast to read. After the registry it went on to something else and making changes there too. It took a little while and then said "starting windows". It sat on that screen a long time and finally made it to the desktop.
Yeah, like whether the new ssd even works. Maybe OP should hook it up temporarily as a secondary drive and try to format it.
I'll try that and report back. @ odiebugs1 It's an Intel 530 series ssd (new) with an ASRock H67M motherboard.
All USB ports are soldered to the motherboard, just because there are front ports doesn't mean anything because they have cables to the board. I wanted to know if you had them on USB 2.0 or 3.0, because you can't use 3.0 because the 3.0 drivers aren't loaded. What about the firmware, did you check, is it up to date ?. A SSD or HDD is a drive, it makes ZERO sense that a SSD wouldn't allow the USB hubs to work.
ASRock H67M ... "2 x USB 3.0 ports, 2 x SATA3 connectors" Yes, like odiebugs says, be careful not to plug keyboard & mouse into those usb 3.0 ports.
All said & done - the issue is Mouse & Keyboard !! I had faced similar problem with Microsoft wireless Mouse & Keyboard combo ( Not getting detected) on some motherboards. Connect the receiver to the back panel USB port and check. Also check if legacy mode for USB is enabled in BIOS - try toggle to Full Speed instead of Hi-Speed. Also check if "USB Mouse Support" is enabled in the BIOS (Some BIOS provide this setting too). Mouse and keyboard (Microsoft) works otherwise - only gives trouble during PE mode.
Ok, Just to let everyone know I plugged the new ssd into a different desktop. I wanted to see if the mouse and keyboard would work trying to install Windows. I got to the first screen where you choose your language and the mouse and keyboard did work. So I believe the ssd is good and it has something to do with the other desktop. The first desktop I tried has a USB printer, a parallel printer, and a serial label maker attached to it. Do you think this could be causing the problem? I'm alsmost affraid to try it again. The desktop is used in a small business and I would hate to loose any information. You say cancelling the installation on the ssd has nothing to do with the changes made to the registry and settings on the original hard drive?
But most newer boards are AHCI by default so it doesn't need to be changed, and newer OS see the SSD not as HDD. Now we want RAID on NVMe and getting away from Sata. RAID -