- Mar 30, 2014
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Hello everyone. I struggled with this #$&*@($ CD/DVD driver error message for SO MANY hours. What DIDN'T work:
* Burned DVD from X17-58997.iso which I downloaded from Digital River
* Tried over and over again (some advice said that after 5-6 failures, installation would magically work!)
* Downloaded new drivers
* Instructed WIndows installation to install new drivers
* Instructed Windows installation to install drivers off my hard drive backup of my old C drive
* Modified BIOS settings in all sorts of ways
* Created bootable USB
* Tried it in every single USB port on my laptop
* Physically took out the DVD drive and tried USB again
I'm probably forgetting a few other things I tried! Anyway, I did finally get everything to work. I apologize in advance for the upcoming novel (!) but I hope that it helps someone.
Finally what got me on the road to success was when I found advice that suggested checking the sha1 hash of my ISO file vs. what it should be. Lo and behold it turns out that my Digital River file was corrupted. All that effort and all those hours spent trying to work with a corrupt download. I went looking for a file that would have a matching sha1 hash, and I found one, and it worked. I now have Windows 7 working. I am NOT a computer expert but I am good at following instructions and I would like to help other people out with this super irritating problem, so here are the steps I followed:
1. Download the Microsoft Checksum File Integrity Validator tool directly from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11533. After you install, make a note of where you save the fciv.exe file. I just saved it in C:/Program Files/ in a new folder that I named Checksum, just to make it easy to find later.
2. Make a note of where your ISO file is saved. Mine was on my desktop so that is what I will show you in this example.
3. To run the FCIV tool and check the sha1 hash value of your ISO file, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt (or at the Start menu, just type in cmd and click on "cmd" when it comes up). The command prompt will put you in C:\Users\yourcomputername (named with whatever your computer is really named!) but you have saved fciv.exe elsewhere, so you will need to navigate to that folder. If you saved your fciv.exe in C:/Program Files/Checksum like I did, in the command prompt you would do this: (bold is what YOU will type, then hit enter):
C:\Users\yourcomputername>cd.. ("cd" changes folders, ".." says you want to go back--or "up"--one level of folders)
C:\Users>cd..
C:\>cd Program Files
C:\Program Files>cd Checksum
C:\Program Files\Checksum>fciv.exe ../../Users/yourcomputername/desktop/yourISOfilename.iso -sha1
The FCIV tool will think for a moment and then spit out a long string of letters and numbers (the sha1 "hash").
If your ISO file is called X17-58997.iso (the most recently available Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit download that Digital River offered) then according to this forum your sha1 hash should be 6C9058389C1E2E5122B7C933275F963EDF1C07B9 BUT I did not get this download to work and Digital River has now taken it down!
4. So I looked on kickass torrents (http://kickass.to) for a Windows 7 installation file. I have a legitimate, original license to Windows 7 Home Premium so I just needed the installation software. I found a Torrent called windows 7 home premium un-touched 32-64 bit + activator and downloaded ONLY the 64-bit file, not the activator. Uncheck what you do not need. This download gets you an ISO named GRMCHPXFRER_EN_DVD.iso. After you download it, check the sha1 hash following the instructions above. It should be: 336779ea6b65f63e11a609b4d021439c47ab315b. Your mileage may vary, but this file did NOT give the CD/DVD drive error!
Windows began installing!
Even so, it kept restarting at the point that it would finally get to Completing Installation. What I did at this point is:
5. Turned off the computer and took the extra RAM out. Various places online state that it is a known problem that Windows 7 installs poorly with too much RAM. I took mine down to 2GB and started the process again.
6. Upon startup I hit F2 immediately to go into BIOS mode. In BIOS I selected to revert to default options. I saved and exited.
Windows installed.
One more tip: You'll need to update your drivers. If you have a backup of your old system, go to Start menu > Device Manager and select "Other devices." Right click on each one and select Update Driver Software. (Start with your network adapter so you can get online.) Select "Browse my computer for driver software," then navigate to your backed up files and find the Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository folder and click Next.
I hope this helped someone out there. Whew!
* Burned DVD from X17-58997.iso which I downloaded from Digital River
* Tried over and over again (some advice said that after 5-6 failures, installation would magically work!)
* Downloaded new drivers
* Instructed WIndows installation to install new drivers
* Instructed Windows installation to install drivers off my hard drive backup of my old C drive
* Modified BIOS settings in all sorts of ways
* Created bootable USB
* Tried it in every single USB port on my laptop
* Physically took out the DVD drive and tried USB again
I'm probably forgetting a few other things I tried! Anyway, I did finally get everything to work. I apologize in advance for the upcoming novel (!) but I hope that it helps someone.
Finally what got me on the road to success was when I found advice that suggested checking the sha1 hash of my ISO file vs. what it should be. Lo and behold it turns out that my Digital River file was corrupted. All that effort and all those hours spent trying to work with a corrupt download. I went looking for a file that would have a matching sha1 hash, and I found one, and it worked. I now have Windows 7 working. I am NOT a computer expert but I am good at following instructions and I would like to help other people out with this super irritating problem, so here are the steps I followed:
1. Download the Microsoft Checksum File Integrity Validator tool directly from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11533. After you install, make a note of where you save the fciv.exe file. I just saved it in C:/Program Files/ in a new folder that I named Checksum, just to make it easy to find later.
2. Make a note of where your ISO file is saved. Mine was on my desktop so that is what I will show you in this example.
3. To run the FCIV tool and check the sha1 hash value of your ISO file, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt (or at the Start menu, just type in cmd and click on "cmd" when it comes up). The command prompt will put you in C:\Users\yourcomputername (named with whatever your computer is really named!) but you have saved fciv.exe elsewhere, so you will need to navigate to that folder. If you saved your fciv.exe in C:/Program Files/Checksum like I did, in the command prompt you would do this: (bold is what YOU will type, then hit enter):
C:\Users\yourcomputername>cd.. ("cd" changes folders, ".." says you want to go back--or "up"--one level of folders)
C:\Users>cd..
C:\>cd Program Files
C:\Program Files>cd Checksum
C:\Program Files\Checksum>fciv.exe ../../Users/yourcomputername/desktop/yourISOfilename.iso -sha1
The FCIV tool will think for a moment and then spit out a long string of letters and numbers (the sha1 "hash").
If your ISO file is called X17-58997.iso (the most recently available Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit download that Digital River offered) then according to this forum your sha1 hash should be 6C9058389C1E2E5122B7C933275F963EDF1C07B9 BUT I did not get this download to work and Digital River has now taken it down!
4. So I looked on kickass torrents (http://kickass.to) for a Windows 7 installation file. I have a legitimate, original license to Windows 7 Home Premium so I just needed the installation software. I found a Torrent called windows 7 home premium un-touched 32-64 bit + activator and downloaded ONLY the 64-bit file, not the activator. Uncheck what you do not need. This download gets you an ISO named GRMCHPXFRER_EN_DVD.iso. After you download it, check the sha1 hash following the instructions above. It should be: 336779ea6b65f63e11a609b4d021439c47ab315b. Your mileage may vary, but this file did NOT give the CD/DVD drive error!
Windows began installing!
Even so, it kept restarting at the point that it would finally get to Completing Installation. What I did at this point is:
5. Turned off the computer and took the extra RAM out. Various places online state that it is a known problem that Windows 7 installs poorly with too much RAM. I took mine down to 2GB and started the process again.
6. Upon startup I hit F2 immediately to go into BIOS mode. In BIOS I selected to revert to default options. I saved and exited.
Windows installed.
One more tip: You'll need to update your drivers. If you have a backup of your old system, go to Start menu > Device Manager and select "Other devices." Right click on each one and select Update Driver Software. (Start with your network adapter so you can get online.) Select "Browse my computer for driver software," then navigate to your backed up files and find the Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository folder and click Next.
I hope this helped someone out there. Whew!
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