Just finished my rig... but I can't install Windows 7.

[eturnal]

Hey all. It's been a late night so I may have screwed something up along the way... let me run it by you all and then maybe you can find a pro-tip to help me along my way.

* I booted my old desktop to the recovery console
* I pulled up a DOS prompt and formatted my C drive (I previously had Windows 7 32-bit)
* I took my newly formatted drive and plugged it into my new build.
* I inserted my Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Upgrade disc into the DVD player and tried to boot from disc.

BOOTMGR is missing

* Did a bit of googling and I found out how to create a recovery disc.
* I made a recovery disc using the only PC I had available - Windows 7 32-Bit (This laptop)
* Tried booting from the recovery disc

BOOTMGR is missing

* Banged face against desk
* Got an ice pack
* Came to Toms for help

Before when I installed Windows 7 from these discs I had to contact Microsoft because there was an issue with installing from an 'upgrade' disc or some crap.

Anyways, what should I do now? Should I take the HDD and plug it into a friends computer and format it as a non-primary drive through DOS... or is there another disc or software I should download to try to boot from? Am tired. Will check the thread in the morning.

Much respect.

 

[fowang]

have you got more than one HDD?

 

[dhvd79a]

Most likely you need to go into your BIOS and change the boot sequence to include your DVD player.

 

[elbert]

Second option would be using the boot manager screen at startup. When your system first boots you will see f2, f10, and or del options near the bottom. press the one with boot manager and choice your dvd drive.

 

[eturnal]

Hey guys - Thanks for the replies.

1) When I boot up and enter the BIOS (on the M5A99X Evo) it gives me the option to select which device I want to boot from. I pick the DVD and it gives me the error message.

2) Changing boot priority causes the same problem.

3) There is only one HDD drive in the machine.

4) I've plugged the drive into an older desktop and 'formatted' it in Windows (although it was already formatted) just to make sure the Format C: isn't any different. (My hope was the GUId Format option would've dropped some special file on the drive.) No dice.

Anyone know if I were to find an iso of Windows 7 Home Premium on the interwebs, would my upgrade key work with it or are the keys somehow tied to the install/upgrade media?

 

[silverliquicity]

Hey

-Try a different Hard drive
-Make sure win7 Disk is clean.
-Change boot order in bios (CD Drive first, HDD Second).
-Remove any other potentially boot able devices (USB key).
-When it say "press any key to boot from CD", make sure to press any key, my lack of attention made me learn the hard way lol.

You can get any ISO of windows 7 off the internet, as long as you download the same edition of windows according to your activation key.

Good luck

 

[eturnal]

-When it say "press any key to boot from CD", make sure to press any key, my lack of attention made me learn the hard way lol.

Good call. Normally, on past systems, my machine would automatically boot from the BIOS. During this install I'd reboot the machine and go back to my laptop, completely missing the prompt which flashes across the screen very quickly. Once I pressed a key Windows started installing.

For anyone who might find this message from Google - When I was installing off the Windows 7 Upgrade disc to a newly formatted HD, my product key was invalid (since I only had an upgrade key). I had to contact Microsoft and they told me to delete every thing from the Product Key box and continue to Windows. From this point I had 29 days to complete authentication. They also had me run MSDT (Microsoft Diagnostic Tool) which they were able to push a fix to my machine with. When I rebooted, I was asked to re-enter my Product Key and then everything was good to go.

Thanks for all the help guys!

 

[eturnal]

Best answer selected by Eturnal.