Windows 7 won't install from USB, black screen w/ blinking cursor after POST

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ferengitarian

ferengitarian

Honorable
Nov 26, 2013
12
0
10,510
Hello, I'm having issues installing windows 7. I have no optical drive, so I'm trying to install from a USB stick. I have an SSD/HDD setup, with the SSD split between linux mint and an empty NTFS partition to install windows to. The HDD is formatted to NTFS. As the thread title says, I'm having an issue where when I attempt to install windows 7 from a USB stick, all I get is a black screen and blinking cursor after POST. Setup as follows:

AMD fx-6300
8 gb DDR3
Tyan TA970 mobo
Mushkin 60GB SSD, 25 gb Linux mint 15, 35 GB empty NTFS, partitioned by GParted
WD 1TB HDD (NTFS formatted, also by GParted)
Kingston 8 gb flash drive (cheap as hell)
Radeon HD 7770

I installed linux mint, then set aside a partition to install Win7. I got an installation ISO, used WinSetupFromUSB on a windows box to prepare the USB stick as a bootable USB stick, tried a number of different BIOS settings (recognize USB as CDROM, native IDE/legacy IDE/AHCI), and whenever I tried to boot from USB, I'd get nothing. Immediately after POST, a black screen with a blinking cursor.

I tried a different ISO, no luck. The official microsoft USB download tool wouldn't recognize either ISO. Different USB stick, no luck. Different port, same. No text, no nothing. Just a cursor blinking dumbly at me out of the fathomless black of my monitor.

Any suggestions? Anyone else have this issue? The only things that I can think of revolve around the BIOS not recognizing the USB stick or its contents as bootable. WinSetupFromUSB doesn't support (U)EFI, and the official microsoft USB download tool won't recognize either ISO, so I'm at a bit of a loss. I've also heard that the windows installer doesn't play nice with pre-partitioned hard drives, though I'm not sure if I've even gotten to the point where that's an issue.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
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rcfant89

Distinguished
Oct 6, 2011
546
3
19,015
I wrote a tutorial about installing windows 7 from a USB device, it is in my signature. If you download the .iso windows 7 file, it is not bootable simply by copying it to a flash drive, you have to make it bootable. Since you said the official windows 7 boot tool did not recognize the .iso file, I believe that is your (at least first) problem. If you can't get that .iso file correctly set up on your flash drive then it will never install on your SSD.

When you are looking through the list of files from your program (windows 7 USB/DVD boot tool?), you are looking for your windows7.iso file as you know. Ensure that you click the right file type right next to the search bar. There is a box called "File name" but to the side of that there is a "File type". Ensure that you have selected all files or else the .iso type may not be displayed.

Let us know your results.
 
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ferengitarian

ferengitarian

Honorable
Nov 26, 2013
12
0
10,510


I hate to ask, but did you read the second half of my post? I tried using the windows 7 usb tool, as well as several others under both windows and linux, and none of them have yielded a working installation. I've tried all different kinds of boot settings in my motherboard's bios (UEFI, non-UEFI, boot from usb, boot USB as CD, AHCI, classic IDE), and none have worked. Different USB sticks, different computers (my roommate's laptop is windows 7, my desktop is linux mint 15).

I've even tried unplugging my SSD and trying to install to my HDD, no luck. EVERY combination of settings, usb stick, ISO, usb-stick-preparing-program (that doesn't fail to recognize the USB as a bootable device) takes me to the same black screen with a blinking white cursor and nothing else
 
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P

Poultus

Commendable
Feb 24, 2016
3
0
1,510
I have the same problem as this... Created a bootable windows 10 (and i have tried 7) with no luck.

I can post into BIOS and change the boot priority but after i save and exit i get a reboot into a black screen with a flashing underscore!

Please help!
 
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S

Shom_CAN

Commendable
Aug 4, 2016
2
0
1,510


Maybe changing disk type to MBR will help you. I had that black screen with failed master boot.

I have Gateway desktop (uses ACER motherboard). I was having problem for almost 2 months, finally it is solved.

How it happened:
I upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows 10, then did a clean install of Windows 10, then went back to Windows 7 using recovery discs after few days.

Again I decided to give Windows 10 another try. I did a fresh install. Used it for 2 weeks, had all the updates done. Then I started losing access to my external hard drives so I decided to go back to Windows 7. But the bloody thing wouldnt boot at all when I put the "recovery discs". It would boot with Windows 10 USB, it would boot with Windows 7 Ultimate installation disc. Now you may ask why I dont use Windows 7 Installation disc instead of recovery discs to install W7. Well W7 disc isnt mine, but I keep it handy for startup repair and manage my SSD and HDD disks which recovery discs cant do.

Why it wouldnt install Windows 7 from recovery discs? Because Windows 10 changed disk type to GPT which is not supported on many PC when you use Windows 7. So you need to change the disk type to MBR before you put Windows 7 back.

Solution:
Important - If you are going back to Windows 7, use Windows 7 Installation disc. Dont use Windows 10 disc or USB.
After you start your PC, press F12 for boot option, insert Windows 7 installation disc, choose DVD drive to boot, go pass the the language selection to where it says repair, press SHIFT and F10 together, a black CMD screen will popup, type diskpart, press enter, type list disk, press enter, it will list your disks, disk will have numbers like 0 or 1, type select disk # (ex your HDD/SSD appears as disk 0, type select disk 0), press enter, type clean, press enter, type convert mbr, press enter. Repeat same if you have multiple storage drive.
Close the screen, quit installation process, reboot PC, F12, insert recovery disc 1, boot from DVD drive, complete your recovery process.

Hope it helps, it surely helped me.
Shom
 
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J

jakenastics

Dec 1, 2018
1
0
10
I had a similar issue. I used rufus to format the drive as bootable but would get stuck with just a blinking cursor when booting from the drive. Then i tried the windows tool and it had an error every time i started the process of formatting the flash drive. Then I tried the above solution of reformatting the drive in command prompt and it told me the drive was too big (it was 120gb). When i used a 4gb drive it worked fine. I don't think the flash drive i was using is broken because it still works fine just moving files around. Anyways, just wanted to post that using a smaller drive fixed this error for me. Hope it helps someone else
 
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