Major Headache Trying To Install Win7

I have an hp dv4-1275mx that is coming up on one year old. I bought it outside of the free win7 upgrade period. None the less I have bought a copy from digital river and have been trying to do a custom/clean install.

The problem I have been having is that the windows 7 gets to the expanding files point during installation and at the 37% mark it reboots the laptop and takes me back to vista (saying win7 installation was unsuccessful). Anyway as per MS tech support istructions I have swaped around my RAM modules and even only used one module at a time, but have experienced the same problem. I try to boot the laptop off the disc and it takes me to the menu to select the language for installation but immediately reboots the laptop.

The lastest suggestion from MS support has been that I need to disable my sata hard disk controller.

My laptop is running the Turion X2 Ultra Dual Core Mobile ZM-80, and HP has informed me that the bios on this unit does not have the ability to disable the sata. So my question is how do I diasble the SATA and is there a driver I need to install to do this. I have checked both hp and AMD website and have not seen any drivers pertaining to this. Would greatly appreciate any help on this matter and even if you can suggest where the probs with win7 installtion is occuring even better. Thanks again.

D

 

Are you launching the installer from within Vista?

If so, boot from the CD and then try installing.

 

yes, installing from within vista some drivers and TSR apps will cause issues with an upgrade. I always do it from a direct dvd boot

 

I have tried both methods. When I launch the installer I am now getting the error code 0X80070570. This error code is acheived right after the copying files part of installation.

I have also tried booting the laptop directly from the DVD, at which point the laptop informs me that windows is loading files, I then see the win7 logo, and then a blue win7 installation screen and then for a split second a menu pops up (mind you this is so fast and seems to last less than one second) but I see the option to select the language to use for installation and then the laptop reboots itself. I am quite perplexed buy this. Thanks

Hi CrazyC, I have also tried booting directing from dvd but like my last post indicated that option is not working. The error code I recieved seemed to tell MS support that there is an issue in my bios and that I should disable sata hard disk controller. However in my current bios from HP, there doesnt seem to be an option to diable this feature. Currently at a road block. Appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

Disabling the SATA hdd controller from within BIOS would manifest as 'AHCI' under 'HDD mode' or something similar.
Search for it.
If it's on AHCI, set it to the other option (I forgot the name right now).

Although, Win 7 shouldn't have problems with this to begin with.

And if you don't have the option, perhaps you should try updating your BIOS to the latest version off the HP website and see if that might fix your issues.

Have you checked to make sure the Win 7 installation disc isn't damaged?

 

The main problem is that I can't find the option to disable sata on my bios. Upon conferring with HP tech support they inform me that for my model of laptop it is not possible to disable sata, and that it is by default always set to the on setting. Additionally HP was curious as to why I wanted to effect this change, because as they put it, if I turned off sata, I would not be able to boot the laptop. (I'm not that tech minded so I dont know if this is true)

Additionally I had already flashed the bios with the lastest version from hp's website.

Also the disc that I have (i don't beleive it to be damaged) may have been the wrong one I recieved from Digital River (the online store where I purchased this wind 7 product) However on the disc it says "Win 7 home preimum" and in the corner it says it supports "anytime upgrade"

MS support told me that this was the wrong disc to be using as I am trying to go vista 64 to Win7 64. We recontacted Digital River who provided me with another download link to what I suppose is the correct version of what I should be using. It was an ISO file which I burned to dvd, and tried to effect the install. But I am getting similar results as before.

HP support informed me that I should use recovery manager by pressing F11 before going into vista, restore to factory condition and boot with the new dvd that I made from the most recent iso file I downloaded. Still the problem persists.

As of last night I found a new driver release for the ATI catalyst controller manager, since my laptop has the 780S chipset by AMD with a built in ATI Radeon 3200. However in the past before I did this driver upgrade windows 7 upgrade advisor suggested I uninstall ATI catalyst controller manager. So not sure what to do.

MS support keeps telling me to disable SATA in the bios, while HP tells me this cant be done. And then MS is saying maybe I should go to a local tech shop and see what can be done AT MY EXPENSE, after putting in more than a week of my time to get this done. This dosen't leave a good taste in my mouth one bit. Deeply frustrated!! Please help anyone!!

 

If you can get the ATI SATA/AHCI drivers, try to load the driver from a USB flash drive before the Windows 7 installation.

 

I found a newer driver for my laptop harddrive, but it was a AMD AHCI Compatabile RAID Controller driver, but I installed it within vista. Why would the difference be in loading it from a USB drive.

Mind you trying to install win7 by booting the laptop from the disc on startup doesn't even get me into the win7 installation as the laptop restarts immediately before anything else can happen. Most recently MS support has said maybe my disc is corupted and they are sending me a new one but I am not that optimistic. Please help

 

You could always try taking out the hard drive and hooking it up to a desktop or another laptop and doing a clean install that way

 

Just how would you propose to do this? The install MUST be done on the same hardware that it will run on, otherwise it will install the wrong drivers. If the desktop has an AMD chipset the installer will build the OS for an AMD chipset. If he then puts the drive back in the laptop which has an INTEL chipset... blue screen o' death.

At one time WAY BACK in Win95 days you could actually do something like this if you knew the trick to do before you swapped the hard drive back to the target machine. But those days are LONG gone.

This idea will not work.

Gary

 

This idea works as i've done it plenty of times with other computers when I worked for a IT firm.

I agree with you on the processor part.

It doesn't matter the hardware, besides processor, because you can add/upgrade hardware and that doesn't cause issues. Changing drivers isn't an issue, especially with win 7 because it is already loaded with several drivers and automatically applies them when it senses new hardware.

 

You aren't suppsoed to totally disable SATA just the AHCI. Usually this is like an IDE compatability mode. You could use the easy transfer mode to get your data another drive then install Windows with a clean format. This should prevent the Vista drivers causing issue too reboot your computer.

Your hardware doesn't seem to extreme that you should have any real issue with a total fresh install....

 

You nee to install the SATA/ AHCI driver from a flash drive/ external HD before the Windows 7 installation starts. Use the "Load driver" option when you boot off the Windows 7 DVD. See if this helps with the installation.