BleepingComputer.com: Toshiba Satellite - Can't install windows

Alright, I agreed to help fix my friends pc and it had a incomplete install of windows 7 on it. It had a what I believe was a windows 7 install on a partition but that was not working so I booted a mini OS called slax and wiped the partition because it would not let windows vista install. So after I did that I tried to install windows vista of course so that took like 2 hrs and once it was done it rebooted to complete the install but it just sat at a black screen. I also tried to install windows XP but once it got done loading all the files it has a blue screen. I think my friend messed something up because he had this disk labeled "admin disk" in it and it has some pretty helpful and very advanced features so I might think he might if done something to mess it up with that disk while messing around. But I cannot figure out what is wrong. Can someone please help? Also I would install windows 7 again only if I had the disk...

This post has been edited by NuckenFutz: 27 April 2011 - 05:29 PM

You don't say how you tried to install anything, so let's start at the top. With any of the OS disks, boot to that original, retail OS disk and after the install routines begins delete all partitions. Then create a new partition, format and install. Let's see what happens then.

Sounds good, thanks. I cannot try it today but I can tomorrow. I will check the forum though if anyone has anything else to say.

This post has been edited by NuckenFutz: 27 April 2011 - 05:40 PM

There's nothing else to say until you try the above. After installing, be sure to install all drivers (starting with the chipset driver). Then install a good anti virus app and then go to Windows Update and download / install all updates EXCEPT hardware & driver updates, which should only be obtained from the oem websites.

I keep hearing that the chipset driver you are always supposed to install first. Why is that?

Well I guess that makes sense why my old laptop's transfer speed was terrible. thanks

This post has been edited by NuckenFutz: 27 April 2011 - 06:21 PM

Aside from the fact that certain features may not work until you install the chipset driver (especially usb), on many systems it improves performance of transfer / sata & ide bus speeds. Since the chipset driver effects performance of the motherboard, it's best to install it before installing anything else. Truth be told, nothing much is going to go wrong if you don't install it first, but we old timers learned to do it that way and always recommend to others that it should be done the same way.

Ok, I installed windows vista and after I was just trying again and again to get the 2nd step of the vista install process started but it finally did and it completed the install. Now I cannot get it to boot. It just sits at a black screen. I am sure that it is booting from the HDD where I installed it too. Does anyone know what it could be? I am thinking the boot loader is messed up but that is just a guess.

This post has been edited by NuckenFutz: 28 April 2011 - 03:45 PM

How can the bootloader be messed up? Did you do as I suggested and delete all partitions before starting?

yes, I deleted all the partitions then made a new one when I installed vista. But I must be calling whatever I mean the wrong thing. Any ideas though?

This post has been edited by NuckenFutz: 28 April 2011 - 03:53 PM

What was the original problem with the pc that caused your friend to ask for help? This sounds like it may be a hardware problem.

Windows 7 stopped working. It said to put in the disk to repair the OS but I did not have a win 7 disk so I just installed vista. He said that it had a blue screen before it stopped working so I didn't think that was good and I thought at first it was the HDD but then I booted slax and it could read all the files just fine. If it is a hardware problem what hardware could be causing this?

This post has been edited by NuckenFutz: 28 April 2011 - 04:05 PM

Most likely culprits are hd or ram, though it could be anything. I'd suggest the following basic test as a start:

1) Go to the website of the hd manufacturer and download their diagnostic utility. Burn it to cd, boot to it and run it. The fact that your program could read the files doesn't rule out hd problems.

2) To check the ram, download memtest (http://www.memtest.org/). Burn it to a cd using a dedicated .iso burning utility (http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm), make sure the cd drive is at the top of the boot order in bios, then boot to the newly created cd and run the utility.

By the way, "Windows stopped working" doesn't help - knowing EXACTLY what happened, and the exact Blue Screen Error message would be VERY helpful.

I have a Emergency Boot CD with a ram testing utility. I will do that while I get the other diagnostic utility you suggested. But this CD also has something called AIDA16 that gives you info/test all the hardware on the pc but when I use that it cannot get past the CPU test for some reason.

NuckenFutz, on 28 April 2011 - 04:17 PM, said:

Well, that's not good

This post has been edited by Allan: 28 April 2011 - 04:18 PM