Windows 7 hanging before installer

[X-Istence]

When I go to start the Windows 7 install it never completes booting into the setup menu, it just hangs at the glowing orb slowly fading the windows logo in and out.

I've tried everything I could think of short of throwing the computer out of the window. It is a Shuttle xPC (I will attempt to get model number in the near future, installing XP on it)

It has an AMD 64 processor, running at 2.3 Ghz, it has an IDE hard drive and an IDE DVD Drive, it does have SATA onboard but it is not in use. I reset the BIOS to the default settings. I have tried booting with different drives installed, I've wiped the drive that was in there (write 0's to the entire disk). I've tried installing from a USB stick instead of the Windows 7 install DVD, I've verified that the install DVD is working just fine in any other machine.

Thing is, these are the last of my IDE drives, I don't have any other computers with the IDE interface as such I can't install elsewhere and then see if Windows 7 will boot.

I'm at a loss as to what is going on, anybody experience this before? Anybody have any ideas of things I could try to get it to work?

Cheers!

 

[X-Istence]

It is a Shuttle SN27P2.

Specs: Shuttle Global - SN27P2

I even tried starting the installation from within that Windows XP install I previously mentioned, and it was a no go.

 

[LordOfLA]

grab an SP1 iso and use that with your existing key. Let me know how you get on.

 

[X-Istence]

grab an SP1 iso and use that with your existing key. Let me know how you get on.

Didn't work either.

Ended up figuring out how to create a USB bootable DOS installation, threw on the awdflash and the latest bios update and hoped that maybe reflashing the BIOS would work, tried FreeDOS first but that would always end up hanging the CPU while saving a backup of the BIOS, so good ol' MS DOS from Win 98 was called in to save the day.

Flashed the BIOS, said it was the latest forced it to write it anyway, and now it boots the original DVD I burned without issues. The awdflash even said the entire thing checked out (as in it didn't need to write anything to the bios and it's checksum was correct) so I am not even sure what the hell is going on, but I am glad it is resolved.

 

[mac1]

these are the last of my IDE drives, I don't have any other computers with the IDE interface as such I can't install elsewhere and then see if Windows 7 will boot.

You can get sata/ide or ide/sata interface cards for 3.5" hard drives, or even one that does both.. i have used them quite a lot when an older motherboard does not have sata onboard and saved the person money forking out on a new motherboard until they want to make a major upgrade + operation system.

I know this is not related to your problem but it might help with old ide drives you might encounter that can be turned to good use.

 

[Sazar]

Didn't work either.

Ended up figuring out how to create a USB bootable DOS installation, threw on the awdflash and the latest bios update and hoped that maybe reflashing the BIOS would work, tried FreeDOS first but that would always end up hanging the CPU while saving a backup of the BIOS, so good ol' MS DOS from Win 98 was called in to save the day.

Flashed the BIOS, said it was the latest forced it to write it anyway, and now it boots the original DVD I burned without issues. The awdflash even said the entire thing checked out (as in it didn't need to write anything to the bios and it's checksum was correct) so I am not even sure what the hell is going on, but I am glad it is resolved.

That is a lot of work to get it going, but glad you figured it out.

Strange I didn't see this thread before