Self Built: Ran into trouble with German 'Windows7"

Piliger

Hi guys, You guys helped me put this PC together last year for my son, and somehow we have got ourselves into a mess.

We had Windows7 working fine for the year. A 500Gb HD and a 64Gb SSD (with Windows7 on this).

My son is going in to start Computer Science this week and figured it would be good to have Ubuntu instead of Windows.

So he downloaded Ubuntu and installed it from an ext drive. All went fine. However after playing with Ubuntu for a while it became clear that neither he nor I were ready for the command line life. Doing anything required tech knowledge neither of us have.

So he decided that it would be better to put Windows back on the whole machine and later install Ubuntu in a partition of the 500, when he had more knowledge. He could also continue playing his League of Legends.

BUT ... we only have the German Windows7 installation disks and though we tried to get it installed ... it gave an error consistently and we couldn't understand the German .... AND ... now the PC won't startup in Ubuntu either

I understand that we need to find an English Windows7 and install from there, with our German license data? We tried downloading a Windows7 iso file called "X17-58997.iso" and burned it to a CD. But the PC will not respond to the CD drive.....

Help anyone ? Is this the correct file to burn to the CD to install from ?

bezerk

Do you have any files you need on the PC? It sounds like the whole hard drive is corrupted and may need a format.

The best way to use ubuntu for your needs would be as a virtual machine inside windows instead of a dual boot.

You should be able to get whatever files you need buy burning a live cd of ubuntu and taking what you need off the hard drive.

What version of windows is it you are using home edition 64 Bit?

gctest50

we tried downloading a Windows7 iso file called "X17-58997.iso" and burned it to a CD

I think thats windows home premium - you'd at least need the same version as the key you have

loads of them here :

http://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/14-windows-7-direct-download-links

This tool :

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

will format a USB key and copy over the files needed from the .iso you downloaded - most things will boot from a USB key

* that tool will delete everything on the USB key *

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

Do you have any files you need on the PC? It sounds like the whole hard drive is corrupted and may need a format.

That is no problem. There is NOTHING of any importance on the PC. Our priority is to get Windows back on it somehow.

The best way to use ubuntu for your needs would be as a virtual machine inside windows instead of a dual boot.

Tks.

What version of windows is it you are using home edition 64 Bit?

"Windows7 Home Premium"

Is the ISO file the right way to go ?

bezerk

Piliger wrote: »

That is no problem. There is NOTHING of any importance on the PC. Our priority is to get Windows back on it somehow.
Tks.
"Windows7 Home Premium"

Is the ISO file the right way to go ?

Yea the ISO is the right way to go. Have you selected from BIOS to boot from cd rom instead of the hard drive? What tool did you use to burn the ISO?

Piliger

gctest50 wrote: »

I think thats windows home premium

That's the one we have.

This tool :

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

will format a USB key and copy over the files needed from the .iso you downloaded - most things will boot from a USB key

* that tool will delete everything on the USB key *

Slight problem I didn't mention. My own PC is an iMac ...... I can download the Windows files and burn them to a mem stick or DVD ..... but doubt if anything of the kind you mention is run-able on my Mac....

gctest50

You'd need to make the USb key or the DVD boot-able ( give it something to kick off the process )

http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/585/ <---- has .......

http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/585/unetbootin-mac-585.zip/download

Piliger

gctest50 wrote: »

You'd need to make the USb key or the DVD boot-able ( give it something to kick off the process )

http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/585/ <---- has .......

Downloaded and 'extracting' ........... fingers crossed gctest50 ...

Piliger

The USB bootable disk was created.

We inserted it in to the PC and switched on holding the F11 key which gave us choices.

We chose the USB key but it responded:

Missing Operating System
Error: No such partition.
Grub Rescue>

Ironbar

Do you need Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit or 64 bit ?

BTW i speak german but that's not any good in this situation

Ironbar

Downloadlinks:


Windows 7 Home Premium (x86) - DVD
(English)http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65732/X15-65732.iso

Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) - DVD
(English)http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65733/X15-65733.iso

Hopefully they still work.....fixed now

and an additioal download link in case the others don't work:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c0e78d7a-883d-4caa-a8c0-1e127a14612a/windows-7-home-premium-download

Piliger

Ironbar wrote: »

Do you need Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit or 64 bit ?

BTW i speak german but that's not any good in this situation

The disk for which we have a full license is Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit.
btw the disk has "Mit Windows Anytime Upgrade" on it.

Piliger

Ironbar wrote: »

Downloadlinks:


Windows 7 Home Premium (x86) - DVD
(English)http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65732/X15-65732.iso

Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) - DVD
(English)http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65733/X15-65733.iso

Hopefully they still work.....fixed now

and an additioal download link in case the others don't work:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c0e78d7a-883d-4caa-a8c0-1e127a14612a/windows-7-home-premium-download

Thanks .....
Those links are incomplete
http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent..../X15-65733.iso

Ironbar

That's only so you can upgrade to Windows Ultimate without reinstalling Win 7.

Fixed links and new one see above.....

Piliger

Thanks Ironbar ... I'll go through the USB thingy again when it downloads (x64)

Ironbar

Try this one: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c0e78d7a-883d-4caa-a8c0-1e127a14612a/windows-7-home-premium-download

Piliger

Ironbar wrote: »

Downloadlinks:

Windows 7 Home Premium (x86) - DVD
(English)http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65732/X15-65732.iso

Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) - DVD
(English)http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65733/X15-65733.iso

Hopefully they still work.....fixed now

and an additioal download link in case the others don't work:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c0e78d7a-883d-4caa-a8c0-1e127a14612a/windows-7-home-premium-download

Hi guys .... thank you SO much for all of this help. I used the Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) file above, called "X15-65733.iso" together with the boot tool linked above.

However I am getting the same error each time........when we boot up holding the F11 key

"ASROCK UEFI SETUP UTILITY"

Missing Operating System
Error: No such partition.
Grub Rescue>

I have checked the contents of the USB drive on a small old netbook and it looks fine.

Could there be now something wrong with the HD of the PC ?
Is there any way to format or blank the HD of the PC before trying with the USB key again ? Could we use our old 2009 netbook to help with this ? (Windows XP)


Thanks again

bezerk

Have you accessed the bios and switched the boot sequence from hard drive to dvd-rom?

Is it the actual ISO file you are burning to the disc or is it contents using a proper tool to burn the contents of the ISO to the disk.

That Grub Rescue is a Ubuntu command. You should be able to boot from USB if your computer supports it.

mad turnip

bezerk wrote: »

Have you accessed the bios and switched the boot sequence from hard drive to dvd-rom?

Is it the actual ISO file you are burning to the disc or is it contents using a proper tool to burn the contents of the ISO to the disk

This ^, but it should be set to usb.

If you have no clue about the bios you usually have to press delete or f12 when the computer is booting (the first black screen)

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

Have you accessed the bios and switched the boot sequence from hard drive to dvd-rom?

Is it the actual ISO file you are burning to the disc or is it contents using a proper tool to burn the contents of the ISO to the disk.

That Grub Rescue is a Ubuntu command. You should be able to boot from USB if your computer supports it.

I used the tool in Post #7 to create a boot disk on the USB key from the iso file. I checked the contents on the old Netbook to ensure the files are written and the USB key is functional.

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

Have you accessed the bios and switched the boot sequence from hard drive to dvd-rom?

No. But we are booting from a USB memory stick.

bezerk

Piliger wrote: »

No. But we are booting from a USB memory stick.

Yea you have to switch the boot mode in the bios to the usb key. As soon as you press the power key hit some of the F keys and it should come up. Then set the boot device to USB

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

Yea you have to switch the boot mode in the bios to the usb key. As soon as you press the power key hit some of the F keys and it should come up. Then set the boot device to USB

Ok tks. .... btw why is that different to using the F11 key and choosing the USB key ?

mad turnip

Piliger wrote: »

Ok tks. .... btw why is that different to using the F11 key and choosing the USB key ?

it changes depending on the motherboard, in general its the delete key or one of the F keys.

Piliger

Ok ..

We went into the ASROCK Bios page, and set the boot up to the USBKey. (It would only list the USB option when it was inserted into the USB port)

We then rebooted: to get the following message....

Missing Operating System.
Reboot and select proper Boot Device

We then copied the contents of this boot USB key on to a DVD and went into the ASROCK Bios in order to set it to boot from the DVD drive.

But it will not allow the DVD drive to be chosen. Even when we put in the DVD into the drive. It just lists the C: drive and the SSD.....


Anyone have any ideas ? Am I going to have to take this to a professional PC place ?

bezerk

Piliger wrote: »

Ok ..

We went into the ASROCK Bios page, and set the boot up to the USBKey. (It would only list the USB option when it was inserted into the USB port)

We then rebooted: to get the following message....

Missing Operating System.
Reboot and select proper Boot Device

We then copied the contents of this boot USB key on to a DVD and went into the ASROCK Bios in order to set it to boot from the DVD drive.

But it will not allow the DVD drive to be chosen. Even when we put in the DVD into the drive. It just lists the C: drive and the SSD.....


Anyone have any ideas ? Am I going to have to take this to a professional PC place ?

download a tool called power iso http://www.poweriso.com/

Right click the ISO and select power iso-> Burn

I attached a screenshot

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

download a tool called power iso http://www.poweriso.com/

Right click the ISO and select power iso-> Burn

I attached a screenshot

Thanks Bezerk - you may have missed it but I am working from a Mac so I guess I will go back to the boot tool recommended above in the thread and use it to burn a DVD direct ... instead of going via a USB and a copy ... in case some files were hidden and not copied over ...

Piliger

Piliger wrote: »

Downloaded and 'extracting' ........... fingers crossed gctest50 ...

Tried to make a DVD boot disc with this .......... but it won't recognise the DVD drive .. it only gives a USB option

Piliger

Hi guys....... some progress .........

I actually discovered that Disk Utility on the Mac can make a Windows boot disk from the ISO. I went ahead and did this.

The PC has now booted from the DVD.......... It asked me to accept the copyright stuff ... then chose an Update or a Custom New Install. I chose the latter.

Then it lists the three discs (partitions) two on the c: drive and the SSD.

But it marks ALL of them with a yellow exclamation mark and says:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.

Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The partition contains one or more dynamic volumes that are not supported for this installation

I thought Windows would automatically reformat the drive we chose.....

Any ideas on how to proceed ?

mad turnip

Piliger wrote: »

Hi guys....... some progress .........

I actually discovered that Disk Utility on the Mac can make a Windows boot disk from the ISO. I went ahead and did this.

The PC has now booted from the DVD.......... It asked me to accept the copyright stuff ... then chose an Update or a Custom New Install. I chose the latter.

Then it lists the three discs (partitions) two on the c: drive and the SSD.

But it marks ALL of them with a yellow exclamation mark and says:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.

Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The partition contains one or more dynamic volumes that are not supported for this installation

I thought Windows would automatically reformat the drive we chose.....

Any ideas on how to proceed ?

There should be an advanced install, when in there find the ssd partitions and delete them all, then create a new volume and install windows on that, it should resolve the issue.

bezerk

Plug out all hard drives except the SSD. It should ask you through the windows installation to format the SSD

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

Plug out all hard drives except the SSD. It should ask you through the windows installation to format the SSD

I'll try that today but .. it said ALL of the drives including the SSD were unusable for installation...

bezerk

Piliger wrote: »

I'll try that today but .. it said ALL of the drives including the SSD were unusable for installation...

Should work with just the SSD

Piliger

bezerk wrote: »

Should work with just the SSD

Question - Is there any way to get it on to the main HD ?

bezerk

Piliger wrote: »

Question - Is there any way to get it on to the main HD ?

Why would you not want windows not on the SSD? That's the whole point of the SSD. But yea just have the one hard drive connected again when reinstalling windows.

Gadgetman496

Do as bezerk suggested above. You can install on any drive. Just disconnect every drive except the one you want to install on and through the advanced option during setup delete any existing partitions on the target drive and format it.

Piliger

ok guys - not trying to be awkward .... just that we planned to marginalise windows to a partition on the HD and run Ubuntu from the SSD as the main OS. But we are where we are and will try this solution above. (no mouse until he comes home from college later )

bezerk

Dual boots don't work well in my opinion. I'd run Ubuntu as a live disk directly from a USB drive or run as a virtual machine inside windows.

Piliger

This must be like pulling teeth ...

We disconnected the SSD, leaving only the one HD in place. Rebooted from the DVD boot disk again.

Windows installation DVD started, and then states that it cannot install to the hard drive ...

Screen shots from my phone.

http://imgur.com/inN2qFM
http://imgur.com/9fbobli
http://imgur.com/A8E7TWU

No Format option is available ... though there is an option to go in to System Recovery Tools. I tried the first one, the Startup Repair but it doesn't change anything and I cannot see how any of the others will work.

Gadgetman496

Correct.

The disk you are trying to install to is 465.8GB in size with 74.7GB free See your 3rd phone pic)

It's telling you that there is already a partition there. You need to highlight the drive and choose the "Delete" option to remove all partitions and then do a clean install

Piliger

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Correct.

The disk you are trying to install to is 465.8GB in size with 74.7GB free See your 3rd phone pic)

It's telling you that there is already a partition there. You need to highlight the drive and choose the "Delete" option to remove all partitions and then do a clean install

Thanks gadgetman496 .... but the problem is, as you can see from the screen shot, that all of these options such as Format and Delete, are greyed out and I just cannot do anything to fix this mess.
Why on earth is this happening ? Has Ubuntu so messed up the hard drive that Windows cannot deal with it at all ? I find it bewildering myself

Thanks for sticking with us

Gadgetman496

Ah I see. Your volume is "Dynamic" and that's no good.

Have a look at THIS

Piliger

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Ah I see. Your volume is "Dynamic" and that's no good.

Have a look at THIS

YES ... some of the commands didn't work but overall it seems to have worked ... and Windows is installing ....... so far so good ... I'll come back with the result.

Gadgetman496

Piliger wrote: »

YES ... some of the commands didn't work but overall it seems to have worked ... and Windows is installing ....... so far so good ... I'll come back with the result.

With any luck you'll be finally sorted

Piliger

gadgetman496 wrote: »

With any luck you'll be finally sorted

ALL SORTED.

Wow... thank you gadgetman496, and you other guys too for hanging in there and helping us. We REALLY appreciate it. What a b!tch of an install ....

Windows 7 fully installed. Cannot detect the GeForce Graphics Card but I am hoping that a Windows Update will fix that.

Karma and thanks to y'all !!

Gadgetman496

Good for you, Perseverance won the day

Piliger

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Good for you, Perseverance won the day

Now I just need to try to pass that trait on to my Computer Science son ... who gives up in a head wind. But hopefully after year one he will know a lot more than his 'stupid' old man :rolleyes:

Gadgetman496

Piliger wrote: »

Cannot detect the GeForce Graphics Card but I am hoping that a Windows Update will fix that.

If it was a self build you should have the driver disc for the G Card? Use it to install the drivers or go to the manufacturers site and down the latest driver. I doubt a Win update will sort it

Gadgetman496

Piliger wrote: »

Now I just need to try to pass that trait on to my Computer Science son ... who gives up in a head wind. But hopefully after year one he will know a lot more than his 'stupid' old man :rolleyes:

The satisfaction of nailing a problem like that is worth it though, isn't it?

Piliger

With all due humility ... not something I am widely known for across Boards.ie ... I owe the real kudos to you and the group here in PCBuild :P

Gadgetman496

Piliger wrote: »

With all due humility ... not something I am widely known for across Boards.ie ... I owe the real kudos to you and the group here in PCBuild :P

That's covered in the quote in my Sig