upgrade to windows 7

[rarredoa]

Hi All,

I have been struggling with a windows 7 pro install on my computer. I have an ASUS MOBO, av8n mvp delux, amd x2 athlon 939 socket, with XP Home. When I boot from CD (with windows 7 in the drive) teh computer never gets past the "starting windows" screen. Is it that my motherboard isn't compatible with windows 7?

Ultimately, my question is this: Is installing windows 7 worth the extra trouble? The reason i wanted to upgrade to windows 7 was to take advantage of the media-center freature. But if the media-center and windows 7 aren't worth it, then i don't want to waste my time trying to upgrade.

Can anyone offer any advice on this? Thanks in advance

[crackinhedz]

did you change your BIOS to boot from CD first? ...most often its set to boot from usb or hard drive...you would need to change to CD/DVD drive as first priority.

As for windows 7 being worth it? I think so. I had Vista 64 and never had any problems, windows 7 64 bit didnt change much for me...but I like it, and you will have access to more RAM with 7 vs. XP.

[ryoohki]

since you have already an os, boot into it, put the DVD of Windows 7, it will load. At the point it will ask if you want to Upgrade or Customize. Don't select upgrade since it's not recommended to that. It will save you're current windows in a OLD.WINDOWS drawer and install 7..

[rarredoa]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

since you have already an os, boot into it, put the DVD of Windows 7, it will load. At the point it will ask if you want to Upgrade or Customize. Don't select upgrade since it's not recommended to that. It will save you're current windows in a OLD.WINDOWS drawer and install 7..

I selected a brand-new installation of windows, rather than upgrade. Although my last few attempts were done at startup, I'll have to re-attempt to install again, but as you suggested.

What is strange though, is that I didn't recall seeing a screen asking me for what partition on the HDD to use. By the way, this reminds me. I have two SATA hard drives on my computer. Should I disconnect the second drive?

[djc11369]

You shouldn't have to disconnect the second drive. Just go into the bios and turn it off. My ancient Dell 8300 has this option so I would think yours would as well. I'd format the non XP drive and then turn off the XP drive and do the install. If you're successful you could then just turn back on the XP drive and reformat it as well. I had the same issue when the Windows 7 RC was released and I tried to install it. Did you run the compatibility checker from MS?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/com...s/default.aspx

Is it an OEM disc?

[Euribo]

I've upgraded to 7 the day it came out and it has been great, except for one HUGE problem. My laptop has a blu-ray drive, and I could play blu-ray movies just fine with Vista, but after I upgraded to 7, blu-rays no longer work. After some research, I found out that Windows 7 doesn't support blu-ray. What the ****!! You have to be kidding me. Vista supports it, but 7 doesn't. If I had known that, I probably wouldn't have upgraded. The only way to play blu-rays on Windows 7 is to BUY a special program which cost around 60 bucks.

[rarredoa]

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

did you change your BIOS to boot from CD first? ...most often its set to boot from usb or hard drive...you would need to change to CD/DVD drive as first priority.

As for windows 7 being worth it? I think so. I had Vista 64 and never had any problems, windows 7 64 bit didnt change much for me...but I like it, and you will have access to more RAM with 7 vs. XP.

Yea the bios is set up to boot from CD. Really strange, how this is happening. I was considering erasing my hard drive, thinking that somehow the XP config that's on there now might be the culprit. Another thing i considered is replacing the motherboard (haven't really been too happy with it anyway, XP had a few annoying dialog boxes where memory addresses or locations were somehow messed up).

I have spoken to the IT guy here at work about it, and it doesn't make any sense to either of us. I recently purchased an nmedia pc LCD display that displays all kinds of cool info, track, chapter, time, spectrum analyzer, etc (gives my PC a really cool multimedia feel to it). The track and chapter info won't display unless i run winamp or windows media player. I use i-tunes and Cyberlink powerDVD, which is not detected by the lcd display. With windows 7 though, movie and music data is displayed via the media-center feature, which IS COMPATIBLE with the LCD display.

[Sponge-worthy]

Originally Posted by rarredoa

Another thing i considered is replacing the motherboard (haven't really been too happy with it anyway, XP had a few annoying dialog boxes where memory addresses or locations were somehow messed up).

It's a fine time to go 64-bit.

[Eddie2u]

Originally Posted by rarredoa

Hi All,

I have been struggling with a windows 7 pro install on my computer. I have an ASUS MOBO, av8n mvp delux, amd x2 athlon 939 socket, with XP Home. When I boot from CD (with windows 7 in the drive) teh computer never gets past the "starting windows" screen. Is it that my motherboard isn't compatible with windows 7?

How long did you wait? I remember 2 computers that I upgraded to windows 7 for friends that would just sit there frozen at the "starting windows" screen for up to 10 minutes than just resume into the install.

[Tempest]

Windows XP is perfectly capable of being a media center. And XP is faster than Windows 7 which is really just Vista anyways with a few changes.

[BLindsay]

Originally Posted by Tempest

Windows XP is perfectly capable of being a media center. And XP is faster than Windows 7 which is really just Vista anyways with a few changes.

Yeah and Win98 is faster then xp so lets use that...

XP is on its way out let it die already lol. Win7 is a good O/S and there isnt a reason to put XP on a new machine anymore

[molson1138]

Originally Posted by Eddie2u

How long did you wait? I remember 2 computers that I upgraded to windows 7 for friends that would just sit there frozen at the "starting windows" screen for up to 10 minutes than just resume into the install.

This is what I was going to ask. I definitely recommend upgrading to Win 7 if you can. It's much better than XP IMO. One of the things that does bug me about it though is when installing there are periods where it seemingly does nothing but does not have any status on the screen. The first time I installed I thought something went wrong but I left it and it eventually finished the install.

[rarredoa]

Originally Posted by molson1138

This is what I was going to ask. I definitely recommend upgrading to Win 7 if you can. It's much better than XP IMO. One of the things that does bug me about it though is when installing there are periods where it seemingly does nothing but does not have any status on the screen. The first time I installed I thought something went wrong but I left it and it eventually finished the install.

I left for the gym on one occasion, came back home well over an hour later, and nothing had happened. Another thing that makes me suspicious is the fact that my HDD and drive LED's were not flashing.

Since the OP date, I've reinstalled xp (this time PRO) because i got hit with a nasty trojan, that XP home was unable to recover from. I am going to try to install windows 7 again, just for kicks.

[JediFonger]

actually you SHOULD disconnect the SECOND drive. this is the same exact behavior that occured on Windows Vista installs as well.

once you remove it, the install will work.

these are stupid idiosyncrasies that MS never fixed.

the other stupid thing that held up my install previously (i hope they fixed it since) is if i have 4GB RAM i can't install 64. i have to do it with 2GB first, then 4GB. the rumour is that it's been fixed since VSP1.

the other thing i heard about the above is that it doesn't occur for everyone. there's somn about AMD chipsets that make it go nuts. it might not occur w/certain combos or maybe just intels.

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by JediFonger

actually you SHOULD disconnect the SECOND drive. this is the same exact behavior that occured on Windows Vista installs as well.

once you remove it, the install will work.

these are stupid idiosyncrasies that MS never fixed.

the other stupid thing that held up my install previously (i hope they fixed it since) is if i have 4GB RAM i can't install 64. i have to do it with 2GB first, then 4GB. the rumour is that it's been fixed since VSP1.

the other thing i heard about the above is that it doesn't occur for everyone. there's somn about AMD chipsets that make it go nuts. it might not occur w/certain combos or maybe just intels.

I upgraded from Vista 64 to Windows 7 64 and had no problems.

I also had both my SATA drives connected, did not cause any problems, nor did my 4gb of RAM.

But I also have an Intel Quad core, not an AMD?