Cannot install windows 7, been trying all day

believeinapathy

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2012
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18,510
Specs:
ASRock N68-S UCC motherboard
AMD Athlon 7750 dual core 2.7ghz processor
4 gig ddr3 ram
Nvidia 9400 GT

I bought this computer off craigslist for cheap so I could upgrade it. I currently have a new high-end graphics card coming in the mail and im ordering a quad-core cpu next week.

I bought this computer knowing it didnt have windows, not thinking this would be a huge issue as I know my way around computers pretty well. So i put the boot disc in originally and the disc drive wont read it (for no good reason) really so I switch out the cd/dvd drive with one that would read the disc.

Then windows finally boots off the disc, oh wait, that is until it gets to the "starting windows" screen, then my monitor either goes into stand-by (again, for no good reason) or it'll just straight up freeze on that screen.

So in order to bypass this problem, I thought to remove the hard drive from the computer, put it into another computer of mine, and then install windows onto that hard drive using the other computer. Did that, put the hard drive back into the original computer, and it still goes to the setup or select boot screen on start-up, and gives me no option to attempt to boot windows off the hd...

What am I doing wrong? I really just want this fixed before my new graphics card comes in.
 

cTs Corvette

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Aug 17, 2011
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18,710
You can't install Windows with the hard drive in another computer unless the other computer is identical in every way.

Other than that, you've got a used computer off Craigslist-it could be anything wrong with it. You should run a RAM test, check the PSU voltages in BIOS, check and make sure the CPU heatsink is properly seated-really check and be sure everything is properly seated, I assume you transported it at least a little since you bought it, check the motherboard for blown capacitors. If you do all that and you still haven't found the issue, I suggest a complete tear-down and rebuild, one thing at a time until you find the culprit.