Windows (7) woes... :(

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MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
woke up this morning to find 'important updates are ready for your computer'... so i installed them and rebooted, and now Windows won't boot.

"The system has detected unauthorised changes to your boot device" was the error message, which meant i couldn't get out of BIOS. So i stuck my windows disc in a clicked 'repair'.. it advised me to unplug all devices and reboot... which i did and got the 'unauthorised changes boot device' message again, so went through the 'repair' thing again, only to be told that my windows disk is not compatible with my installation. (it's the same disc as the current install) . so i decided to just reinstall Windows and start again, only to be given a list of partitions on my drive and "windows cannot be installed in this disc, the selected disk is of the gpt partition style" ...but windows is (was) installed in this drive, you fe*@#ing t%@tting thing!!! So i formatted that partitian, expecting plain sailing but no... windows cannot be installed in this disc, the selected disk is of the gpt partition style.

I've had a look on the microsft support pages but their resolution doesn't comply with option on the screen (eg. click 'drive options' but there is no 'drive options' to click) ...so that's no help :sad:

it's an SSD drive with three partitions and windows is asking where i want to install it:
disk 0 partition 1 - size 100MB - free space 78MB - type System
disk 0 partition 2 - size 128MB - free space 128MB - type MSR Reserved
disk 0 partition 3 - size 223GB - free space 223GB - type Primary

I have options to delete, format, load driver (can't find disk)... but not sure what to do?

I'm at the stage where a full reinstall is the only option, so maybe formating the whole drive is what i need to do... just not sure how.. any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

cheers peeps :smile:

:cry:
 

RoubaixCube

~Tribanese~
Location
London, UK
Sounds like Microsoft tried to 'forcefully' upgrade to windows 10.theyve been sending the free windows 10 update down the wire for a while now. Someone in the US has actually successfully sued Microsoft for loss of data due to windows 10 being forced down everyone's throats. Guy left his pc running - went out for a few hours, came back and his pc was going in a constant boot loop due to Windows 10 not being completely compatible with his pc

Sadly theres no other way to get around this apart from reinstalling windows or using another drive to install windows on that before attempting to recover data from the SSD
 
OP
OP
MontyVeda

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
I blocked the W10 a year ago, so would be very surprised if its that.

what i need to know is how to get Windows installed on my drive again, it should be straight forward but it's not :sad:

is there a way that i can completely wipe the drive in BIOS and start over?
 
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steve50

Disenchanted Member
Location
West Yorkshire
go into Bios, advanced settings, make sure your system settings are set to legacy then try to do a fresh install. as above it sounds like windows 10 has tried to install and damaged the file system.
Failing that, if you have access to another pc, remove the hard drive from the offending computer, connect it to another computer running win7 and format the hard drive then reinstall the drive into your computer and boot from windows disc.
 

r04DiE

300km a week through London on a road bike.
Sounds like Microsoft tried to 'forcefully' upgrade to windows 10
I doubt it, MS are no longer offering the free upgrade.
it's an SSD drive with three partitions and windows is asking where i want to install it:
disk 0 partition 1 - size 100MB - free space 78MB - type System
disk 0 partition 2 - size 128MB - free space 128MB - type MSR Reserved
disk 0 partition 3 - size 223GB - free space 223GB - type Primary
When you get to that screen listing the partitions, you should have 'Drive options (advanced)' somewhere, bottom right I think. Use this to delete all the partitions and then continue with the reinstall.

Do be aware that you will lose all data on the drive though.
 
Location
Salford
Assuming you don't need to keep the data (i.e. you have backups of documents, photos, music etc, etc) you can delete all three partitions and install in the empty space.

The installer will create the same partitions again.

for info: the MSR is used for BitLocker.
 
Location
Salford
I doubt it, MS are no longer offering the free upgrade.
When you get to that screen listing the partitions, you should have 'Drive options (advanced)' somewhere, bottom right I think. Use this to delete all the partitions and then continue with the reinstall.

Do be aware that you will lose all data on the drive though.
Delete all those partitions, unless you have data you want to keep on one, which I doubt looking at that.
Create new partition.
Then it should install
Assuming you don't need to keep the data (i.e. you have backups of documents, photos, music etc, etc) you can delete all three partitions and install in the empty space.

The installer will create the same partitions again.

for info: the MSR is used for BitLocker.

I was only third in line but at least we're consistent
 
Lol. I always manage that
 
OP
OP
MontyVeda

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
I doubt it, MS are no longer offering the free upgrade.
When you get to that screen listing the partitions, you should have 'Drive options (advanced)' somewhere, bottom right I think. Use this to delete all the partitions and then continue with the reinstall.

Do be aware that you will lose all data on the drive though.
Thats where to MS support confused me... there is no 'drive options'.

so with yours and other advice, i've ignored that step, deleted the partitions and it now appears to be installing... it's currently on 0% complete. coffee time i think :smile:
 

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
well it's not looking good. After going through 4/5ths of the install... it currently appears to be doing nothing; black screen, that's it :sad:
Just leave it for a while, apparent freezes like this can occur during installs, but it should be (slowly) installing in the background.
 
I have literally just wiped the floor with Windows 10 on my laptop and installed Windows 7 from original disks. As in I did it yesterday.

I deleted all the partitions and just installed the OS straight into the drive without re-partitioning. A computer engineer once explained convincingly why for the average user there is no point in partitioning.

The only issue I've had is the bloody laptop was pre-loaded with Windows 8 and Acer don't supply drivers for Windows 7 for the hardware. Luckily these Windows 8 drivers (in the main) work. Wouldn't be an issue with my self-built desktop PC. Hate the big brands and their childish lock-downs!

My experience of the de-partitioning was that I had to install Win 7 by setting the boot device as CD/DVD drive in the BIOS and running the Win 7 installer from DOS that way. I couldn't de-partition the drive via the Windows-based installer app.

Shouldn't take more than an hour especially on a solid state drive, so maybe the drive is broken..?

bb
 
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