Sunday, March 17, 2019

boot - Another Windows 7 install freezing

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T510 which has been runing Windows 7 32bits for almost two years now.


For some reason, the system got dusty and slow so I backed-up my data intending to format my HDD and reinstall Windows 7 32bits to give my laptop a fresh new start.


I downloaded the iso image of Windows 7 32bits from Microsoft's website a week ago and have tried to install it eversince, without success. The installation process systematically freezes at the "Starting Windows" screen, after the screen "Windows is loading files".


Unfortunately, I have been overconfident in the new install running smoothly and I deleted lenovo recovery tools when formatting the hard drive, so using them is not an option anymore.


From having googled the problem, I realize this seem to be a common issue. Yet I haven't found a solution so far from what I read on the google links.


What I have tried (based on what I have read from related problems)



  • Waiting for a long time (more than 30 minutes) on the --apparently -- frozen "Starting Windows" screen.

  • Updating my Bios.

  • Disabeling peripherics such as USB, Wifi, bluetooth,...

  • I have succesfully installed an old version of Windows XP and subsequently formated my HDD before trying to install Windows 7 again, without success.

  • Opening the CD player and closing it again when frozen on the "Starting Window" screen.

  • Boot from an USB stick instead of a DVD (in both cases I mounted the bootable DVD/USB with Microsoft utility's "Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel")


It might be worth to emphasize that this is not a computer I assembled myself, or a laptop which is new to Windows 7. This laptop used to run Windows 7 (slowly but surely) and the problem occured when trying to re-install it (which seems to rule out the possibility of a hardware issue right?).


Any clue on what could go wrong?


EDIT


Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I am currently downloading new iso images and I will check the SHA1 or MD5 for them. Unfortunately starting in Safe mode did not help. I'll try again disabeling peripherics once I am sure that my iso images are not corrupted. I'll keep you updated.


EDIT 2


This has been a little nightmare. I tried multiple iso image from different webistes (http://www.raymond.cc/blog/links-for-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-microsofts-official-distributer/, http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/where-can-i-download-windows-7-iso-i-have-a/7d964b05-2be9-4800-bc7f-3ca30356fc3d, http://www.shayatik.com/2013/03/download-windows-7-sp1-official-iso-from-digital-river/) verifying the SHA5 when available. Nothing works. I am going to stick to the XP version I installed which works great so far (why moving to windows 7 after all...). Thanks for you help anyways!


EDIT 3


I have survived with XP for a while but I really wanted to update given that windows is not supporting XP anymore (and it started to be real slow). So I gave it another. I am now sure it is not a problem with the .iso image. I have tried with multiple image which work perfectly fine on other computer


Recently I have tried something else :



  • Take the Hard drive out of the laptop,

  • Connect it to another device,

  • Install windows on this other device,

  • Put it back on my laptop


Unfortunately it did not work, neither with windows 7 nor with windows 8, although the same hard drive with the same os (7 and 8) work when connected to another computer. No more ideas...


EDIT 4


Re-installed windows XP. It still works. Conversely, tried to install two linux distributions (Ubuntu and Linux Mint) and both failed to install too. XP really seems to be the only OS running on my computer at this point. Still waiting to get my hand on some spare RAM to see if that's where the problem comes from following @Keltari suggestion.

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