Windows 7 installation hangs at "Setup is starting..." screen

[dcapp]

I am helping out a friend by re-installing Windows 7 on his laptop. Unfortunately the laptop had been infected beyond repair by a virus/malware and would not boot past bios.

When installing Windows 7 x32, I make it to the "Setup is starting..." screen and it does not continue. It is not the disk as I have used the same one to install it on my laptop. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1545 with 4gb of ram and 500gb HDD space.

Please help!

 

[cy3rtch]

I have the same issue I am installing win 7 and it's stuck at the SETUP IS STARTING screen. I have reformatted my HDD and still nothing. I'm thinking it's the HDD because it may be old it had win xp on it and i was using it just fine no i'm trying to install win7..




It would be highly appreciated if anyone could help..

 

[haggisdog]

Same problem here. Fresh hard-drive installed and Im just trying to install Windows from a clean, Microsoft DVD (I've tried both the 32 bit and 64bit DVDs). The DVD loads all the initial drivers and I can get to the screen where I select language/timezone but after I click on the "Install" button it just hangs with the Setup is starting.

 

[sbogus]

Win7 doesn't handle PCMCIA on older hardware well.
You might try this:

1. On the first reboot, boot from the DVD instead of the HD.
2. Select the Windows installation you just created, then select repair.
3. After scanning and finding no issues, you will see an option for advanced repair options.
4. Open a command prompt.
5. Rename c:\windows\system32\drivers\pcmcia.sys to pcmcia.wah
6. Reboot the system; if that was in fact your problem, install should now proceed.

There is a way to get the PCMCIA slots working after the fact, if the above actually works.