Just ranting about my latest Win 7 install

[smalltownguy]

Stupid Windows 7 install. grrrr   

Trying to get it installed on an older Celeron 1.3 with 512 ram. Hard drive is flaky at best, and keeps corrupting install files. You think I could just blow up the partitions on the drive, re-partition and try again? Nooooooooo, the Win 7 disk 'sniffs' out the files and tries to re-use them in an effort to speed up the subsequent installs.

*rant rant rant*

Popped in my WinXP thumb drive and blew up the partitions once again, setting up partitions of new sizes in an effort to try and 'trick' the Win7 disk into re-copying the files again. We'll see if that works.

[smalltownguy]

Just tried the Linux Ubuntu 10.04 Live distro to try an 'end-around' approach to getting my flaky HDD to play nice. Laptop locked up tight. *dammit*

[gryhnd]

Google for the Gparted Live CD. Use that to nuke and redo your partitions. It hasn't failed me yet. It's small, lightweight.

[smalltownguy]

Used my XP on a thumb drive to re-partition my 40GB laptop drive to 3 partitions, one at 100MB, one at 19GB, and one at 20GB. Win7 setup has now expanded all the files, and has rebooted to complete registry settings.

Here's to keeping my fingers crossed.

[smalltownguy]

Google for the Gparted Live CD. Use that to nuke and redo your partitions. It hasn't failed me yet. It's small, lightweight.

Thanks for the heads up. I think I'll use that to do my partition work once I'm all done. Once I'm finished, I'll need to merge all the partitions back together again.

[smalltownguy]

Crap, my screen just blanked. Laptop's still running, though. Hopefully it's just Win7 slooooooowly installling universal graphics drivers.

[smalltownguy]

Heh, after literally TWELVE minutes of a totally black screen (but still ON and chugging away), the OS finally finished installing the graphics drivers and rebooted the machine.

 

Now let's see if I can actually get all of the devices on this old laptop responding correctly. I doubt there was Vista / Win7 driver support for some of this stuff, but we'll see.

Intel Celeron Mobile 1.4, 512K RAM, and a flaky 40GB hard drive. Guess you can load Win7 on just about anything. There no possible way I could have gotten Vista on this thing.

[drventure]

I've been pretty happy so far with win7. It even more or less located drivers properly for my HPg85, when, with Vista, I spent days getting that printer to work right.

Have you ever used SPinrite? If you've got a flaky drive, spinrite can often bring it back from the brink.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

+1 on Spinrite. It's a wonderful tool..
http://www.grc.com/cs/prepurch.htm

However it has been my experience with it (and probably around 100 drives I've used it on) that it can be a little rough on a drive that truly wants to die. Eventually the motors/servos in a harddrive WILL fail. It cannot physically repair the drive, but it can get you a little more life out of it.

[drventure]

Yeah, but that's kinda the point. I mean, if a drive is +that+ close and spinrite puts it over the edge, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to go through the hassle of completely setting it up only for it to die a few months down the line.

You know, if it's just a 40gb and it's obviously giving trouble, it'd probably make more sense to just replace it with a much bigger drive for 50$ that to bother with spinrite on it, though.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Yep, very true. Either way it's a valuable program to have on hand.

Also doubly agreed on the overall questionability of using a 'flaky' drive to begin with. I'm still trying wrap my head around what the benefit of running Win7 on that type of platform is. Certainly TinyXP or possibly even Win2k would work better?

[Frigo]

+1 to all of the suggestions listed above. In addition, try looking for a tool called GWScan. It was originally made for Gateway computers, but will work on any system. You'll need to make a bootable disc to use it, and once you do, you can go into the main menu and write 0's to the HDD. This is known as a low level format, and while there are other tools out there that accomplish the same task, this is the most user friendly that I've come across. Essentially, what it does is resets the disc back to it's original factory state. It may not make a difference if your drive is physically damaged, but it's something else to consider.

Alternatively, you can just download the latest build of Hiren's boot cd and run through all the tests that are offered there. 

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Here's another utility for 'zeroing' a drive:

Derik's Boot and Nuke
http://www.dban.org/download

[RayB]

Defective drive -- Blame Windows 7. Yeah makes sense.
 

[missioncontrol]

Defective drive -- Blame Windows 7. Yeah makes sense.
 

Nevermind the fact he's trying to get it installed on an older Celeron 1.3 with 512 ram

[smalltownguy]

Defective drive -- Blame Windows 7. Yeah makes sense.
 

RayB, I'm not blaming Win7 for the disk behavior. I knew it was flaky before I started. In fact, I really didn't WANT to attempt to put Win7 on a Celeron 1.3 with 512, but the buyer of this laptop requested it. I cautioned him about the risks of running an OS where the process overhead comprises >60% of the available ram, but he didn't care, he was hell bent on getting Win7.

I ended up having to stop for the night last night and try again this morning. I wiped the drive with the XP boot CD again, and did a minimal install of WinXP (after 2 failed attempts). Then I popped the Win7 install disc in, and after 1 failed attempt and 3 runs of CHKDSK later, I was able to successfully get Win7 to load.

Testing this morning revealed that I can run explorer, IE8 with 2-3 tabs open to youtube, ebay, and facebook, along with 1 -2 Office 2003 programs before the RAM really begins to peg out at 80% or so. Not bad, all things considered. The laptop plays non-HD youtube videos with no problems, DVD's play just fine, and although jittery, Media Center can be used.

I turned the laptop over the the buyer and STRONGLY recommended that he pick up a pair of 512kb SODIMMS to beef the machine up to 1GB. Heck, if you're gonna shell out $175 for a refurb laptop, the least you can do it put out $25 more for enough ram to get it running properly. He said, "I'll think about it." (read: no way)

Mark my words: in 2 weeks he'll be asking me for a RAM upgrade. Then the price goes to $50 

[AtomSmasher]

Mark my words: in 2 weeks he'll be asking me for a RAM upgrade. Then the price goes to $50 

Sounds more likely that in 2 weeks he'll be asking why his harddrive failed and he lost all his data.

[smalltownguy]

Yes, well there is that too.

Acutally, that drive has been in use off and on for the past 8 months as a maintenance laptop. I've always known that the drive has bad sectors, but I've never had any other issues with it except when I go to re-format and install windows.

He'll be setting up a Carbonite subscription, so if the HDD crashes, he's covered.

[Frigo]

He'll be setting up a Carbonite subscription, so if the HDD crashes, he's covered.

Provided he makes it that far...