Question what partitioning data should be used for a fresh install of Windows7

[floortester]

I have been trying for about a week to install a 500gb SSD which was used in a linux system as a Windows 7 disk in an Asus laptop. Asus, it seems, did not allow you to boot from an USB and had no CD/DVD player, so my only answer was to use a Linux tower unit with the SSD as the only drive and a DVD drive. I had low-level formatted it and tried diskpart from my windows system without joy and have tried various partitioning variations using G-Parted on CD but the Windows 7 original 32 bit DVD fails at the point of installing Windows files. There has been two error codes, basically saying that there is no media to install to and to restart. When restarting and I get to the media boxes, it shows that the SSD does not exist anymore and therefore cannot partition it, modify it or make it bootable, the only way out is to turn off.
I have tried variations with no partition information, a whole drive in NTFS with a 100mb bootable sector at the beginning and all variants inbetween, the only information the drive shows is it's old linux name of dev/sda.
Before I go out and buy another laptop, perhaps someone may have come across this problem before
Yours
Floortester

 

[RealBeast]

I have been trying for about a week to install a 500gb SSD which was used in a linux system as a Windows 7 disk in an Asus laptop. Asus, it seems, did not allow you to boot from an USB and had no CD/DVD player, so my only answer was to use a Linux tower unit with the SSD as the only drive and a DVD drive. I had low-level formatted it and tried diskpart from my windows system without joy and have tried various partitioning variations using G-Parted on CD but the Windows 7 original 32 bit DVD fails at the point of installing Windows files. There has been two error codes, basically saying that there is no media to install to and to restart. When restarting and I get to the media boxes, it shows that the SSD does not exist anymore and therefore cannot partition it, modify it or make it bootable, the only way out is to turn off.
I have tried variations with no partition information, a whole drive in NTFS with a 100mb bootable sector at the beginning and all variants inbetween, the only information the drive shows is it's old linux name of dev/sda.
Before I go out and buy another laptop, perhaps someone may have come across this problem before
Yours
Floortester

I would secure erase the SSD with diskpart and then install on it without formatting, just leave it completely unallocated. Use another Windows computer to do the diskpart with:
diskpart
list disk
select disk n (where n is the SSD)
clean all
exit

Then attach it as the only attached drive and install to the unallocated space, W7 will create the partitions and format NTFS.

 

[floortester]

Thanks for your advice, I ran diskpart [some 4 hours] and it was reported as correct, I then loaded the SSD back into the spare linux tower as the only hard drive adjusted the bios and boot manager to show that the boot was from the CD and ran the original Windows 64bit CD, it got to media where I pressed New and it showed a system partition and the remainder of the disk [sum seemed to be OK] as another. It started to install and then stopped. -
"Windows cannot install required files, the file does not exist, make sure that all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation Error codes 0X80070002 and 0X80070037", one one installation the system showed 58% files copied before crashing, the average is 28%
I restarted and got back to the media selection where rescan left me with greyed out options, I clicked new driver which showed the computer, the Windows cd, and an X drive?, I clicked the Windows CD and got the following message
"No signed device drivers were found, make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers then click restart"
having rescanned, the hard disk had gone from the display and a message came up saying "No drives were found, click load driver to produce a mass storage driver for installation" just going round in circles. The SSD is still showing as /dev/sda, all y windows disks are labeled MBR Hard Disk # with the "C" drive as 0, I tried to change it using mklabel but it refused as a illegal command
Any further thoughts?
Thanks
floortester

 

[SkyNetRising]

What hardware are you trying to install windows 7 on? Model name of the laptop?
With any modern hardware it's rather tricky to get windows 7 on.

And from those error codes, seems like your DVD media is damaged.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Anyway - if you can't boot from USB/DVD, then you can prepare hdd this way.
Boot from windows installation media - on another pc, that can boot from it.
Have only single drive connected.
Go into command prompt and execute:

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 0​

clean​

create partition primary size=5000​

format fs=ntfs quick​

active​

assign letter=C​

exit​

bootsect /nt60 c: /force​

copy all contents of DVD to partition C:
(make sure all files are copied, there might be some hidden ones too)

Remove prepared drive and move it to target pc.
Boot from it in legacy mode and install windows.

This installs windows in legacy mode.

It might be possible to install in UEFI mode, if disk is partitioned in GPT, partition created is EFI system (instead of primary active) and formatted in FAT32. Haven't tried this way, but it should work too.

 

[floortester]

What hardware are you trying to install windows 7 on? Model name of the laptop?
With any modern hardware it's rather tricky to get windows 7 on.

And from those error codes, seems like your DVD media is damaged.

I am trying to load windows onto a Samsung 860 EVO SSD which was the master disc in my Linux machine, I tried to clone it with the 500gb disc running Windows 8 from my elderly ASUS C400 laptop, the cloning machine or I made a horlicks and the result was 2 blank discs instead of 2 copies of Windows8. I found that the ASUS did not support USB booting and therefore used the Linux machine as a test bed, I disabled all the drives and installed the Samsung SSD and utilised the DVD for media. I did not like Windows 8 and having a Windows 7 machine working and its original discs, used these to try and install Windows 7. I have tried both the 32 and 64 bit versions and an ISO copy of Microsoft's Win7 downloaded onto a USB stick with Rufus, all these media faided at roughly the same point and the same error codes. I cleaned the SSD with parted [4 hours] and it was reported clean, I use G-Parted to reformat the disc after errors and remove all partitions and to use mklabel commands which failed to remove the linux /dev/sda label which is the only thing that is unusual on the disk.
The Linux machine is a self build with gigabyte990x A-UD3 motherboard, ASUS GTX550 TI GPU, 8gb 1600mhz corsair memory, FX6100 AMD black processor, corsair TX650 PS

 

[floortester]

Anyway - if you can't boot from USB/DVD, then you can prepare hdd this way.
Boot from windows installation media - on another pc, that can boot from it.
Have only single drive connected.
Go into command prompt and execute:

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 0​

clean​

create partition primary size=5000​

format fs=ntfs quick​

active​

assign letter=C​

exit​

bootsect /nt60 c: /force​

copy all contents of DVD to partition C:
(make sure all files are copied, there might be some hidden ones too)

Remove prepared drive and move it to target pc.
Boot from it in legacy mode and install windows.

This installs windows in legacy mode.

It might be possible to install in UEFI mode, if disk is partitioned in GPT, partition created is EFI system (instead of primary active) and formatted in FAT32. Haven't tried this way, but it should work too.

Thanks, tried this, got SSD on PC with the copy of windows 7 onboard, however there is no legacy boot in the bios and changing the boot to EFi gave an error that the partions were MBR and would not accept the boot, otherwise whenever I tried to reboot I got the error \boot\bcd was missing code 0C0000098. The SSD accepted the copy of Windows 7 well enough, so my concern that it was duff has gone away. I am wondering if I created a DOS boot USB stick with rufus, could I use a command prompt from it to transfer the boot info from the installation CD to the hard disc??

 

[SkyNetRising]

It doesn't accept legacy boot. .. Unusual.
Ok. Then try it this way.
Prepare drive on second pc. Have fast boot disabled in BIOS.
Boot from windows install media.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 0​

clean​

convert gpt​

create partition efi size=5000​

format fs=fat32 quick​

assign letter=C​

exit​

bootsect /nt60 c: /force​

Copy installation files to C: partition.
Shutdown and move drive to target pc.
Disable secure boot and boot into UEFI mode.

Note - you can install only 64bit version of windows 7 in UEFI mode. For 32bit version you'll need legacy mode.

 

[floortester]

It doesn't accept legacy boot. .. Unusual.
Ok. Then try it this way.
Prepare drive on second pc. Have fast boot disabled in BIOS.
Boot from windows install media.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 0​

clean​

convert gpt​

create partition efi size=5000​

format fs=fat32 quick​

assign letter=C​

exit​

bootsect /nt60 c: /force​

Copy installation files to C: partition.
Shutdown and move drive to target pc.
Disable secure boot and boot into UEFI mode.

Note - you can install only 64bit version of windows 7 in UEFI mode. For 32bit version you'll need legacy mode.

If it is going to go wrong, it does it all together,
Windows command prompt stated this time, having worked last time, that bootsect was not a known command and failed, xcopy failed on the first file setup.inf and aborted, rebooted and still xcopy would not progress beyond the first file on the Windows 7 disc. Looking at the SSD, it has an initial 105mb system partition, a labeled 4.9 partition and the remainder as unallocated. Windows explorer then crashed.
I am mystified to why a disc should prove so difficult, I wonder if it is the PC causing the problem rather than the disc, I feel a bit wary of disconnecting 4 discs, 8Tb on my existing Windows system to try and format a single SSD but I might have to.

I was did not check the command failure, I went back to Google and realised that the bootsect command came from the original Windows boot disc, I started again with the first set of commands and NTFS format and tried the bootsect command, it gave no response other than the list of possibles, I assumed that it worked. Xcopy worked and copied all the installation onto the SSD, I put it in the target machine , checked the bios and began the installation.
It went a long way until it failed with the update error of 0x80070003, i loaded a command prompt and all the boot files seem to have expanded in the correct directories, I tried again and the system did not take long to fail and give and error code of 0x80070002
At least the SSD is booting!!

 

[RealBeast]

Thanks for your advice, I ran diskpart [some 4 hours] and it was reported as correct, I then loaded the SSD back into the spare linux tower as the only hard drive adjusted the bios and boot manager to show that the boot was from the CD and ran the original Windows 64bit CD, it got to media where I pressed New and it showed a system partition and the remainder of the disk [sum seemed to be OK] as another. It started to install and then stopped.

Exactly what computer model is the ASUS that you are using for W7 with the SSD?

Windows 7 should be installed to the SSD with all other disks disconnected. You don't need to remove the disks just to prep the SSD though. I'm surprised that a clean all on a 500GB SSD took 4 hours, I did three 1TB drives taken from business machines to re-purpose and they took about 20 minutes each yesterday. That said, I would secure erase the SSD again if you still have issues and make a new Windows 7 installer USB or DVD from a known good image.

Do not try to use a Linux machine to do anything to a disk that will be a Windows boot disk other than to secure erase it or you will have issues unless you really know what you are doing.

The diskpart commands from SkyNet Rising for legacy and efi bios should work fine, although as I said -- you can simply install to an unallocated drive (MBR for legacy, GPT for EFI -- but I rarely use EFI over legacy when installing W7 when possible.

 

[floortester]

Exactly what computer model is the ASUS that you are using for W7 with the SSD?

Windows 7 should be installed to the SSD with all other disks disconnected. You don't need to remove the disks just to prep the SSD though. I'm surprised that a clean all on a 500GB SSD took 4 hours, I did three 1TB drives taken from business machines to re-purpose and they took about 20 minutes each yesterday. That said, I would secure erase the SSD again if you still have issues and make a new Windows 7 installer USB or DVD from a known good image.

Do not try to use a Linux machine to do anything to a disk that will be a Windows boot disk other than to secure erase it or you will have issues unless you really know what you are doing.

The diskpart commands from SkyNet Rising for legacy and efi bios should work fine, although as I said -- you can simply install to an unallocated drive (MBR for legacy, GPT for EFI -- but I rarely use EFI over legacy when installing W7 when possible.

I have not used the ASUS C400 laptop to install Windows, as it has problems looping the boot program and until there is a bootable system in it, I doubt whether I will get anywhere.
The long clean time was with the "clean All" command, clean on its own took some 4 minutes, I utilise a usb SSD backup sytem to hold the 500gb SSD hanging off my Windows 7 machine, use Windows 7 Command box for the diskpart and a Windows & original 64bit DVD in the DVD drive for the bootsect and xcopy. I have to select the disc as W: and change it to C: using g-parted on DVD when I put the SSD [as the only disc] into my linux tower. The linux tower is only a medium to hold the drive and DVD

 

[RealBeast]

So you clean all the drive, and it works in like 4 minutes. That sounds right, I saw 4 hours above.

Once you do that then you need to stick in into the laptop and use a USB Windows 7 installer stick made with Rufus and a DVD or image of W7 and use it to install on the laptop. There are good instructions for Rufus on the web site. I use it to install everything (all Windows, Linux).

 

[floortester]

It did not go well, system started OK then after a while came to a halt saying it needed to check file integrity, it found numerous errors, I would guess over a 1000 orphan files refiled and screen after screen, over 50 in total of changes, it then carried on and came toa stop with a blue screen "Fatal system error C000021A verification of a knowndll failed 0XC000020 [0X000d3ddco - 0x00000000] please restart setup to install Windows

 

[floortester]

[SOLVED]
I used partiton wizard to check the disc surface, all Ok and filled it with "0", I then tried the Windows DVD again and it failed, I reformatted with G-Parted to a no partion, non formatted state and tried a Linux original DVD, failed at the same point as before, did not even load the DVD into memory. The SSD is not on the Samsung list of supported SSD in Magician. I gave up and replaced the SSD with an old 2.5" 500gb disk which the SSD had meant to replace, rebooted and Windows 7 loaded as good as gold. I can only presume that the Samsung disk has an inherant failure and will not spend any more time on it.
Thanks all of you for your help