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I've been suffering from rather a lot of BSOD's of late, and decided the other day to do a fresh reinstallation of Windows. Alas, it seems my machine disagrees with me.

I keep whacking F8 and selecting the CD drive with the windows CD in to boot from. I get nothing, and it either goes straight to the main harddrive to boot as normal, or tells me windows fails to boot, and to boot normally or use system repair. System Repair BSOD's, and boot normally enters a continuous windows failed booting cycle.

I've tried putting the CD/DVD drive as the first boot option in the BIOS. It does the same thing as if I'd selected the CD/DVD drive to boot from on the F8 menu.

When the computer is running, the CD/DVD drive can see the disc, so there's no problems with the hardware or disc itself. But I can't re-install windows whilst running windows.

Solutions, technical people? I'm far from computer illiterate, but I've exhausted my own stock of knowledge here.

you have to reformat the hard drive (you will lose everything)

cant just do a re install or boot from CD,

reformat the whole drive, you will have to create a brand new partition, and format it. THen do a new instal.

 easysauce wrote:
you have to reformat the hard drive (you will lose everything)

cant just do a re install or boot from CD,

reformat the whole drive, you will have to create a brand new partition, and format it. THen do a new instal.

That's what I'm trying to do.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/248980/how_to_format_your_hard_drive_in_windows.html

Unfortunately, I flop at Step 1 here. I can't boot from the disc.

I suggest downloading ubuntu, its less than 1gb and you should easly be to format the hard drive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or try to fix it. Im not sure whats wrong with your computer.

 Ketara wrote:
Unfortunately, I flop at Step 1 here. I can't boot from the disc.

During the boot process, there should be some notice to press a key such as [Del], F1, F2 or some other to enter BIOS or Setup. Once you do that, you'll need to look for a Boot Order. This tells the computer which device to try to boot off of first. Make the CD drive the first choice. The hard drive should be second. Once you've done that, save and exit the BIOS/Setup. Insert the installation CD into the CD drive and restart the computer. Watch for the words, "Press any key to boot from CD". When you see them tap one of the letters on the keyboard. The installation CD should do the rest from there.

As others have said, you'll need to format your hard drive during the actual installation process.

Good luck (assuming you haven't already fixed the issue by now).

Before you reinstall, have you run memtest overnight from a CD or USB? A 10 hour run is more than enough to catch an issue with your ram or cpu.

Do you have another computer? You may also wish to pull the drive, drop it into another PC, and run chkdsk on it. If you don't have another desktop, you can drop it into an enclosure and run it from a usb port on a laptop, if available.

Is this a retail windows disk?

Alternately, feth that CDrom. boot from USB.

1.) Go find a USB stick that has 4gb of capacity.
2.) On another computer, download a copy of Windows 7. The x86 is here, the x64 is here. Note: this is both legal and legit.
3.) Once downloaded on the other computer, download and run the Windows 7 USB Download tool. Follow the instructions and point it at your USB key.
4.) Once done, plug the USB key into the problematic PC, change the startup order in the bios to removable drives first, and do the needful.

Breotan wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Unfortunately, I flop at Step 1 here. I can't boot from the disc.

During the boot process, there should be some notice to press a key such as [Del], F1, F2 or some other to enter BIOS or Setup. Once you do that, you'll need to look for a Boot Order. This tells the computer which device to try to boot off of first. Make the CD drive the first choice. The hard drive should be second. Once you've done that, save and exit the BIOS/Setup. Insert the installation CD into the CD drive and restart the computer. Watch for the words, "Press any key to boot from CD". When you see them tap one of the letters on the keyboard. The installation CD should do the rest from there.

As others have said, you'll need to format your hard drive during the actual installation process.

Good luck (assuming you haven't already fixed the issue by now).

If you'll look to my first post, you'll see that I said I've already done that. It just doesn't boot from the disc regardless of the boot priority in the BIOS,

Ouze wrote:Before you reinstall, have you run memtest overnight from a CD or USB? A 10 hour run is more than enough to catch an issue with your ram or cpu.

Memtest says I'm good, alas.

Do you have another computer? You may also wish to pull the drive, drop it into another PC, and run chkdsk on it. If you don't have another desktop, you can drop it into an enclosure and run it from a usb port on a laptop, if available.

Is this a retail windows disk?

Alternately, feth that CDrom. boot from USB.

1.) Go find a USB stick that has 4gb of capacity.
2.) On another computer, download a copy of Windows 7. The x86 is here, the x64 is here. Note: this is both legal and legit.
3.) Once downloaded on the other computer, download and run the Windows 7 USB Download tool. Follow the instructions and point it at your USB key.
4.) Once done, plug the USB key into the problematic PC, change the startup order in the bios to removable drives first, and do the needful.

This was the final option I was considering, I just haven't gotten around to it yet due to my largest USB being at my girlfriends.

Do you have any other bootable discs of any kind; to rule out the disc being bad? Or did you boot to Memtest?





Automatically Appended Next Post:
What model motherboard?

 Ouze wrote:
Do you have any other bootable discs of any kind; to rule out the disc being bad? Or did you boot to Memtest?





Automatically Appended Next Post:
What model motherboard?

The disc reader can read/identify the Windows 7 program disc or even partway initiate the program reinstallation whilst windows is running. As well as reading other discs I have. So it's not the disc or the reader at fault.

The motherboard is an ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5K Premium (LGA775)

I get that it works in Windows, can you boot from the bios to any bootable disc? Like seatools or memtest or whatever you have laying around. I know it's not a hardware one, but perhaps it's a problem with the bios. If it won't recognize the drive as bootable with any bootable disc, perhaps try resetting to defaults (you probably already did this), clearing the cmos jumper, and then - if indeed it's the "won't boot to[i] anything[/i from the bios]" issue - flash the bios?

Actually, are your SATA ports i the bios set to AHCI? What if you switch them to IDE?