M17x R3 Windows Installation time

Hi folks,

I recently noticed a strange thing with my new R3. It took like forever to finish a clean Windows 7 installation. The hard drive was 320GB 7200rpm, used with Alienware Windows Installation CD.

I dont know why but the whole process took about 1 hour (maybe longer). This is really annoying. I have tried twice, but same result. It took only 20-30 mins with my R2.

The longest part was during "Expanding Windows files". Very slow. Especially, it was stucked at 99% for like 15 mins.

What is the potential problem here? Did anyone observe the same thing? I am thinking its the DVD drive's problem....

Any idea would be appreciated.

 

same here with the ssd in my sig...sort of
>1min to copy files and +/- 30mins to expand files.

 

This confirms my thought that this is not a hard drive's issue.

Could it be the installation DVD by any chance ? This is really annoying !

 

An easy way to confirm is to repeat the clean install using your R2 Windows Install disc (if you have it). This will rule out or confirm any burn problems with the R3 media (provided they are both the same flavor - home prem and home prem, pro and pro, etc.).

 

kunekaden: I think Torai means that the whole installation went very slowly. The part you are describing, where the installer first does a quick "copying Windows files" before it goes into the "expanding" mode is very fast, like you describe. It's like seconds. The "expanding" and "completing" (completing comes after the first restart) is where all the time goes. Then there is a short period of "setting up for first use" (after a restart) and then your personal configurations before final approach to seeing first-light of the Windows 7 default desktop.

I have Win-7 Ultimate, which was considerably slower for me to install than a friend of mine who has Professional on an XPS-17 (hard drive, no SSD). I built both systems after wipes and my Alien R2 was the slower of the two by a significant amount. Oh, and on my R2, the time spent at "99%" is consistently WAY longer than that spent at "98%" or lower values on the "expanding" panel. However, one hour does seem ridiculously long, even in the slower cases.

 

Thanks BB for the suggestion I did think about it but since each laptop has an unique windows installation DVD so I havent tried it yet. Just wanna see if there is anyone has the same problem first. Does R2 windows installation dvd works for the R3 as well ? (Product key can be changed later, no problem)

This is exactly what happened to me.

UPDATE: the Completing installation took even longer - 20 mins already and still running....

 

Well, on "completing installation", that WILL often take a while. It can get a little tense because unlike the "expanding", there is no useful wait-bar or other feedback. But I think I waited a similar length of time on the "completing" phase with my R2 (again, Win-7 Ultimate). On the XPS-17, with Professional, I blasted through the "completing" phase in perhaps 5 minutes. Again, both systems are hard-drive based, not SSDs.

 

I see. But still, the whole process took me about 20-30 mins on R2. And for this R3 it took 1 hour and 10 mins. There must be something wrong here.

 

What's that Windows 95 Ultimate in your signature? I remember that back when I used to scratch around in caves, dodging the sabre-toothed tigers, wearing a loincloth and carrying a big stick everywhere I went... Are you running VM Ware or something? Or is that just comedy?

 

yeah thats just a fun part.. no virtual machine... Im installing windows 7 HP x64 just like everyone else..

 

Hmm... I don't know what to tell you on the 1hr10min stuff. The "completing" can be a while (20-25 mins wouldn't surprise me) but sitting at "99%" for an hour... that's a head-scratcher. But everything else is working normally? Or rather, was before you did this?

 

Thanks Voice. My R2 just died seconds ago, cant boot with error 0xc000000e and my R3 is still under installing. Have to type this on my phone LOL.

Yeah it works out of the box but I didnt have a chance to test anything rather than installing firefox.
1hr 10mins was the whole process. It stucked at 99% for about 15-20 mins. I'll backup the R3 and try reinstalling windows.

Update: I just notice that my R3 is noticeably slow when installing other softwares too. This is strange. Or maybe I have a bad HDD ?

 

I remember the install taking upwards of an hour - (expand, install, restart) plus the initial setup and stuff - on the momentus slim that came with the r3

 

That was with ur OCZ, wasnt it ?

 

Oh, well stuck at 99% for 15-20 is much better. It still seems long, but the "99%" always takes MUCH longer than the other figures. I think you may be experiencing something that is within the band of normal variance in installs; hardware differences and version differences in the OS may contribute very significantly.

I have also noticed that there is a degree of randomness between trials of Win-7 installation, in that if you watch carefully, the events don't always take the exact same amount of time from one install job to another. I didn't mention that in my big "nuclear-option" post a while back, but it is true.

 

Mine didn't take that long, mine took about 15-20 mins on the actual Windows installation, drivers took longer though. I also installed from a flash drive though, I always recommend creating a flash drive from the restoration disk as it's ALOT faster.

Edit: Just make sure you don't put the flash drive in the USB 3.0 ports or you may look like an idiot for an hour like I did the first time

 

7200rpm
From when I had to reinstall the OS on hdd in order to update firmware before installing on ssd :/

 

I was gonna say the same. Speeds are day and night-sooooooooo much faster when installing from a USB. You should try it- Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. And to make an .iso- Imgburn is here.

 

how much space do you need for a decently stripped w7 install @usb?
I've wanted to do it for a while but never bothered to look into it.

 

I've got one with 7 on a 4Gb drive and have about 600 megs free. You could put the OS and the drivers on an 8Gb.

 

...w tf!
Why haven't I done this yet. Thanks.

 

yor machine may have a bad ODD because mine takes like 15min to install on a SSD but i can't imagine it will take that much longer on a HDD

 

the optical disk drives are on the bad sata2 ports (of first batch r3s) though I would be shocked if the degradation was that bad in such a short period of time.

Any good way to test ODD?

 

Just got mine and I used a vertex 2 and a samsung ssd and both took a long time to install from a usb drive samsung a bit faster but more then half the time it takes to install on my asus g53jw. Just thought I would put it out there.

 

hmmm.. so could this be a motherboard pb?.....

Can you guys (the one you have the timing problem) inform us if you have the MB with the known problem.. or a good revision?

Also try to install from a Windows 7 CD not a Alienware Windows 7...just to identify the problem

thanks!

 

Can I piggyback on this thread? Does the included Win7 disc do a clean install of Win7 or the does it have all the Dell stuff associated with it (AlienGUI or watever that bootup screen we have is called)? If yes to the latter, then could that be the reason why it's taking so long? Cuz my dinodesktop and laptops took like 40minutes total each to install Win7 ultimate 32-bit.

 

It's not wrong with the Laptop nor the Optical Drive. It's the OEM Disc.

I just looked over their Disc, has some hotfixes that has to be applied and several -AutoUnAtteneded process, which handles system branding, OEM SLIC Product key installation, themes, time, blah blah blah.

You can look over it by yourself, insert AW WIN7 Disc,

Get inside the Disc, Sources-> $OEM$ folder.

Or to confirm your self, install an Non-OEM Windows 7 Disc. (Retail aka)

I Suggest you to convert the DISC TO ISO and Mount it on an FlashDrive for faster installations. Like 15-20mins. (I slept during installation, so couldn't look over the time =D)

Get this tool: RT Se7en Lite - Beta (build 2.6.0),
and explore the AW disc, create an ISO, Customize it and Zap it to a FlashDrive.

PS: Laptop SATA DVD Drive -> 8X and Desktop's Drive Speed -> 22X.