Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Amit]

Oh snap, nice. I know there's a fan made program out there, but I'd rather not mess with that if I can just edit the file locations. I'm going to apply this tonight.

[Amit]

Jesus christ this is starting to piss me off. 10 failed installations of windows onto my SSD.

The very first time I've ever attempted to install windows on it, it goes through everything and restarts to complete the install. And then it sat at that for 4 hours. So I restarted the PC into safemode and brought up the command prompt using Shift+F10 and launching the device manager to check for driver issues. I thought it was a video driver issue, but it isn't. So I restart my pc normally hoping the installation will complete this time. I get and error saying that windows needs to be reinstalled. I say, fine, let's try again. So I boot PartedMagic from a USB drive and use enhanced secure erase to wipe the damn thing and try installing windows again. Everything partitions fine, files copy to the drive fine. Installer starts to expand the files, but the installer always fails at random percentages.

My 10th attempt, which I just made using a completely different USB stick and completely different Windows 7 ISO, failed at 100% of expanding windows files. The error that I keep getting is: "Windows cannot install required files. Make sure all files required for installation are available and restart in the installation. code: 0x8007045D"

I've googled this issue to hell and back and found zero solutions. HALP ME! What the fuck do I do? My DVD drive is IDE and my motherboard only takes SATA, so I can't use a DVD to install windows. Are my USB installers becoming corrupt mid-installation or something?

Note: I already flashed my BIOS to the latest stable version and set the drive configuration to AHCI.

[ThePlague]

Are you formatting and creating a new partition before installing each time? The partition could be corrupt that you're trying to install on.

[=sw=warlord]

@Amit:
I imagine this would come in use for you.

[Zeph]

For 15 bucks he could buy a cheap DVD drive. Maybe even two of them if he shops around.

edit: it's most likely that your USB image is bad.

[Amit]

Are you formatting and creating a new partition before installing each time? The partition could be corrupt that you're trying to install on.

I erase the thing completely, then boot the installer and let windows create the system reserved partition and the other one for the OS itself.

@Amit:
I imagine this would come in use for you.

I was going to pick up a similar at the same time that I bought the SSD, but I forgot to. I figured that I wouldn't need one after I got home, though, since I only do USB installations now, really. Installations are super fast on my Patriot Xporter Boost 8GB USB drives. Usually about ten minutes to fully install windows 7.

For 15 bucks he could buy a cheap DVD drive. Maybe even two of them if he shops around.

edit: it's most likely that your USB image is bad.

I've used 4 different USB drives with three different ISO files. Hell, I even ripped a retail Ultimate x64 disc twice and used those files. The USB couldn't be bad. especially when they all work for installing on other drives. I plugged in a 30GB HDD i had lying around and managed to install windows three times from three of the USB drives (all using different USB images).

I still want to try a real DVD before I write this drive off.

[Cortexian]

It took me 7 minutes 20~ seconds to install Windows 7 Professional w/SP1 from disk to my SSD. USB should be 5 minutes or less.

[Bodzilla]

looking to build a desktop PC for my Miss's to use i'm thinking lower mid-range because she wont take full advantage of a gaming rig, but i'd like to be able to have some games be playable on it.

what do yas recommend?

[Amit]

It took me 7 minutes 20~ seconds to install Windows 7 Professional w/SP1 from disk to my SSD. USB should be 5 minutes or less.

Hmm, well I pulled the WD Caviar Black from my Lenovo T520 and popped the V200 inside. From my Partriot USB drive, it expanded the windows files quite quickly in 4 minutes and no error so far. Restarting now.

Let's see if this works.

Edit 1: Well, the installation went through flawlessly in less than 10 minutes including typing in all that extra information when using the OS for the first time. So that rules out bad installation media (no messed up USB drive). I'm starting to think my Desktop's motherboard is the issue. 10 failed installations and then it works the first time when installing on my laptop? Does that sound right to you?

My desktop specs are:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
Gigabyte GA-970A-D3
Sapphire HD 5750 Vapor-X
Kingston 2x4GB DDR3 1600Mhz KHX1600C9D3B1K2/8GX (running at 1333Mhz)


EDIT 2:

Okay, well I swapped out my old SATA cable for a new SATA III cable that came with the motherboard and proceeded to reinstall windows on the V200 again. This time it worked flawlessly and much quicker, but I have a feeling it's not because of the cable switch. My mechanical hard drive needs to run in IDE mode to even boot windows for some reason, even though it's a SATA drive. So I forgot to switch my motherboard to AHCI mode before doing the installation on the SSD. So I'm using the SSD right now, but it's probably suffering from decreased performance due to it being installed and running in IDE mode rather than AHCI. I've also noticed that Windows 7 doesn't recognize that I'm using an SSD since the sleep, hibernate, and all those other unnecessary features are still active. I've read online that you can change the mode by changing some entries in the Registry. I think I'll try that before reinstalling and seeing if the speeds are where they should be.

[Amit]

Okay, well I swapped out my old SATA cable for a new SATA III cable that came with the motherboard and proceeded to reinstall windows on the V200 again. This time it worked flawlessly and much quicker, but I have a feeling it's not because of the cable switch. My mechanical hard drive needs to run in IDE mode to even boot windows for some reason, even though it's a SATA drive. So I forgot to switch my motherboard to AHCI mode before doing the installation on the SSD. So I'm using the SSD right now, but it's probably suffering from decreased performance due to it being installed and running in IDE mode rather than AHCI. I've also noticed that Windows 7 doesn't recognize that I'm using an SSD since the sleep, hibernate, and all those other unnecessary features are still active. I've read online that you can change the mode by changing some entries in the Registry. I think I'll try that before reinstalling and seeing if the speeds are where they should be.

This is the guide that I'm going to use: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/05/25/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7/

Do you guys think this will still cause my performance to be less than if I was to just clean install?

Edit: WTF is this shit?

Native IDE:



AHCI:




How the hell did I lose performance by switching the AHCI? I've also noticed that my boot up time is about 3 seconds slower in AHCI mode instead of IDE, too.