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Following on from my other 2 threads in the 'puter forum, Put a new WD 500Gb hard drive in the laptop yesterday (Toshiba if it makes any difference)

I'd made a new system image disk to re-install everything...

Boot fron the cd/dvd drive all seems to be as it should, Windows finds the drive partitions it and stuff...

Get to the end of the process..black chequered flag, complete..please remove recovery media. Fine.

Switch 'puter back on, *setup is initialsing setting settings or summat*

Next *Setup is applying system settings*

Followed shortly after by *InstallWindows* (white cross against a red circle)

*Windows setup could not configure Windows to run on this computer's hardware*

I'm on my old lappy again..and it's even slower than it was before..


Somebody...Please tell me where I'm going wrong.

Have you formatted the disc? I think it needs to be fat32

Formatted as NTFc so far as I'm aware..are you sure about Fat 32 ??

Edit.. *and windows setup seems to re-format it anyway*

Soooooo........I'm reformatting the disk to Fat 32 using the *Hirons* start-up disc as recommended by "Black Venom"..

Then I'll try again.......

what version of Windows are you using? FAT32 is ancient, I would expect to be using NTFS on anything Windows 2000, XP or later.

formatted as fat 32..restarted using recovery medium...DiskPart successfully set the partition ID...after cleaning the dismk blah blah....

Partition the disk with a second, separate drive for your data so when you (almost inevitably) have to reformat you do so on a partition the data isn't kept on.

Icm76 wrote:what version of Windows are you using? FAT32 is ancient, I would expect to be using NTFS on anything Windows 2000, XP or later.

NTFS is what the H/D was formatted as...


Wind ows 7


Thanks for your input

kellys_eye wrote:Partition the disk with a second, separate drive for your data so when you (almost inevitably) have to reformat you do so on a partition the data isn't kept on.

But when I re-install windows from the install disk it re-formats the HD anyway???????????

You can chose the size of the partition to be used for the Windows install. I suggest you use (say) 100Gb and the rest will be left as drive D: (400Gb).

kellys_eye wrote:You can chose the size of the partition to be used for the Windows install. I suggest you use (say) 100Gb and the rest will be left as drive D: (400Gb).

Think I'vegot 238Gb in the partition for the windholes install before I put the install disk in, Windows then takes overand re-formats the hard drive...

can you see any advanced install option?

No.

I hate these damn manufacturer specific OEM editions of Windows, they are more pain than they're worth. I spent ages last year trying to recover my neighbours Dell PC, never again. I told them to get vanilla Windows or Linux next time they buy a new system, it's so much easier...

Anyway, just to clarify - the recovery disc that you made how did you make it? is it from a hidden partition on your original hard disk that came with the laptop? i.e. to do a full factory reset on the OS? If it's like the Dell you have to press some awkward combination of keys at a specific moment during boot up to access the factory reset options. Somewhere there should be an option for you to manually choose which partition to use for the boot partition and which to use for the OS*

My recommendation would be to stick with Windows 7 partition and disc formatting tools, don't use any 3rd party stuff or even Linux partition tools (bitter experience tells me that Windows won't play nicely with other partition systems)

How are you partitioning the new disk? iirc you can have a couple of primary partitions + extended (which may contain more partitions within it) or three - four primary partitions. Windows needs at lest one primary partition (for boot) but it might need a primary for the OS as well. I would make no more than two primaries and the rest extended. In theory you can do whatever you like with extended, but I would make no more than two more partitions in the extended area (bitter experience again)


*With vanilla retail versions of Windows 7 I detest all the fixed, default options - I usually install a first copy of Windows to a spare disk, once it's running it doesn't have to registered and additional copies of Windows can be installed exactly where you want them with whatever partitions and drive letters you want to assign. I'm wondering if you can get your Toshiba OEM install media to run from a Windows desktop? You can find vanilla Windows ISO images here: w7forums Note that the OEM keys you have will not activate the versions on the links above, but you can run them for 30 days without registering, which at least allow you to try the alternative method of installing.

When my computer went t**s up a few years ago, I got someone to have a look and after he'd tested it, he fpound out the mobo had developed a fault. Got a new mobo, but,,, it wasn't just a case of plugging my hdd into it... Manufacturers write specific code into the recovery partition, linked to the original mobo. Apparently to stop fraud Stops anyone just plugging your hdd into another computer and retrieving valuable data from it.