I am in need of some help with a win 7 installation. I bought an older HP Compaq desktop with no hard drive ... 240 W BTX power supply - Active PFC Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 Processor (3.06-GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz FSB) HP 4 x 1 GB PC3-10600 (DDR3 1333 MHz) DIMM I tried to install Windows 7 Pro 64 bit SP1 and it keeps hanging at the startup logo. I bought the machine without a HD and am using an old 80 gig Maxtor Diamondmax plus 9. I downloaded and burned a disk using Startup Disk Creator that comes bundled with Ubuntu. I did a sha1sum check and verified the disk after. Actually I made 2 disks since I couldn't get the 1st one to install either. The first time I tried it went past the point where the logo is displayed and I entered country etc but when I got to the part that asks where to install I realized the drive wasn't detected. So I went back and reconnected the sata cables and checked the bios to confirm it was being recognised. I'm not sure that I have the right windows Iso but I did install Win 7 pro 64 bit SP1 on an identical machine I bought a week before and it installed and activated flawlessly. Really could use some help.
model of pc might help. sounds like hdd issues (boot with no hdd to see if win setup loads up) or memory (try 1 memory at time). or take dvd out using usb to boot win setup. if you have a second pc.. start win 7 there and when it asks to restart 10 second countdown turn off and replace hdd into laptop.
Thanks for all the replies. The model is HP Compaq 6000 Pro Small Form Factor PC . I tried installing with a bootable USB drive and still no luck.... I think I can rule out a RAM problem as it functioned fine running an ubuntu live USB. Also I replaced the ram with some other sticks I have and still no luck installing. Bad sata cable, I think unlikely but will try that if nothing else works. Incompatible drive, hmmm maybe it is a rather old sata drive .... possibly there is some formatting issue? Bios issue? Since I installed a different drive on an identical machine and it installed with no problems I think the old bios works ok, There is a brand new update Rom that I can apply though. Possibly there may be something in the settings that needs to be changed that I'm not aware of. As for setting to AHCI , if I recall correctly there isn't an option to change to sata anyway. I'm going to try Latin McG 's suggestion of trying to boot without the HD to try an isolate to see if the issue is with the HD. I 'm just looking at some documentation right now and not what"Advanced format" is or if the lack of the update could be an issue. I do have another PC running ubuntu but not sure where there 10 second countdown begins ... So you are saying I can get past the point where it says start windows, shut down and the HD will function as though the installation will continue from the same place if I replace it into the other desktop?
Thinking back, the first time I tried to install I got past the starting windows logo and progressed to where you need to indicated where to install to and there wasn't a drive listed. Didn't check the bios before this to see if it appeared there before this but it does show in the bios now.
May also help to wipe the drive and format it to NTFS with your Linux distro before trying to install Windows. Ran into this a few times and it may be that the drive has some funky stuff going on. May as well test the dive health with a bootable tool.
So I've tried everything I can think of. I tried to install from a different computer to the 1st reboot point but after I got through the intial screen it wanted a new driver. I tried to insert a windows live disk I have but still didn't find the driver. At that point I powered off and put the drive back it the machine I want to install on but still hangs. I have tried a few different drives DVDs, thumb drives and hard drives (pre formatted with NTFS ). Tried 32 bit, tried difffrent ram , tired going down to 2Gb ram ... Still the same thing. I updated the bios to the newest version 11/15 but no luck. IS there possibly some security feature in the bios that is preventing the install?
Finally got it to install. I had 2 drives it didn't like and a bad USB port. Tried a newer HD and changed USB ports and got it done. Oddly enough the drives were good enough to install linux but not windows. Thanks to those who gave their input.
Basically windows hanging issue at the startup logo may be occurs due to a faulty RAM or HDD (Memory Modules for the system) kindly install windows 64 bit operating as this particular CPU supports 64bit and 86bit Architecture, you have to install the operation system using one RAM for testing purpose and if you've done!! find out the faulty one and replace.