Unable to install OS of any kind, shiny shiny paperweight

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SapphiraOmega

SapphiraOmega

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Apr 19, 2014
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Trying to solve why my Alienware x51 won't install windows 7 home premium x64 sp1 from it's original disk and is locked in a loop

Okay, I need immense help with my Alienware X51. I tried to reinstall windows 7 on my computer and it all seemed fine, I booted from the win7 install disk it came with and it booted into what looked like a low res safety mode instead of windows set up, I tried to restart but it wouldn't, it would only try to boot from disk saying to insert boot media. I inserted the disk and let it restart, it restarted and went to the windows install screen that I wanted but it is saying it can't install to any of my partitions or my hard disk in general and I have no idea what to do...I tried to install Linux to see if it would work, it got me through the install process and let me restart after auto-ejecting the disk but it did the same thing and would only boot from the disk...I keep getting the same screen over and over and I have no idea what to do. It's saying to enable the controller from BIOS but I can do nothing in BIOS, the only options I have are boot priority and clock. Can anyone understand what might be happening and how I may fix this?
 
Solution
A
Have you used "Disk Management" before to see how many partitions were on the original setup? You likely have a hidden 100MB boot partition, a C drive ( standard with OS ) and possibly a hidden repair partition of some type. If you are not sure, you would be best of to take the HD out and put it in an external enclosure and run Disk Management from another computer to see what is on the HD. If it is only a boot partition and C drive, you could "delete volume"on both partitions to effectively erase the entire HD so can you start fresh. No need to format the drive as the Windows install disk will do this for you. To "delete volume", simply right click on the rectangles representing each partition and you will see the options...
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avjguy2362

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Jun 21, 2012
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Have you used "Disk Management" before to see how many partitions were on the original setup? You likely have a hidden 100MB boot partition, a C drive ( standard with OS ) and possibly a hidden repair partition of some type. If you are not sure, you would be best of to take the HD out and put it in an external enclosure and run Disk Management from another computer to see what is on the HD. If it is only a boot partition and C drive, you could "delete volume"on both partitions to effectively erase the entire HD so can you start fresh. No need to format the drive as the Windows install disk will do this for you. To "delete volume", simply right click on the rectangles representing each partition and you will see the options. Re-install the drive and you should be able to install W7 without any old boot partitions to mess things up.
 
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SapphiraOmega

SapphiraOmega

Reputable
Apr 19, 2014
4
0
4,510





I do have several partitions, I wasn't sure if I needed them or not. I have a 100mb one, another labeld OEM reserved, another one labeld reserved, another labeld recovery, and the rest of the space undesignated and I didn't know if I could/should delete them....and all of them say it's impossible to install windows to them even though I wiped the non labeld partitions and they have 916GB of space >~< I think I'm going to replace the hard drive and hopefully that works, thank you for your advice! :D
 
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