PC Guru? HELP!

[marshall]

Home PC has **** a brick. Wont even get past the BIOS pages at the beginning of startup. Im guessing its got corrupt files in Windows somewhere causing problems.

Massive ballache due to the fact that ive found every disc apart from that very important Windows 7 one!

Following this link from pcworld http://www.pcworld.com/article/248995/how_to_install_windows_7_without_the_disc.html i downloaded the necessary 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium file with the idea that by using the suggested Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool id be able to write the iso file to the disc/flash drive and use it as a bootable disc to reinstall windows.

That however hasnt been the case, ive sat here for hours racking my brain going round in circles on google. Upon opening the iso file in the usb/dvd download tool, i get the message "the selected file is not a valid iso file, please select another"

Great, so the files downloaded from the pcworld site dont work with the software pcworld suggested.

Any ideas?

I have the serial number for windows 7, just not the disc.

 

[Mentalpen]

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1-U ISO

English x86: X17-59463.iso
English x64: X17-59465.iso

Windows 7 Professional SP1-U ISO

English x86: X17-59183.iso
English x64: X17-59186.iso

Windows 7 Professional N SP1-U ISO (Note: N editions come without media components)

English x86: X17-59335.iso
English x64: X17-59337.iso


Windows 7 Home Premium SP1-U ISO

English x86: X17-58996.iso
English x64: X17-58997.iso


When you say it won't go past the bios screen what do you mean? it should not even enter the bios! do you mean manufactures splash screen. If you have messed in the bios make sure its set to boot the hard drive!

What actually happens? just a blank screen? is it a pc or laptop? have you moved it? as it if its a laptop it may be a ram stick that has come out causing a blank screen or has died and you could remove one at a time and move the others about to see.

99% of makers will have a hidden partition you can access to reinstall windows. So sony you will hit the vaio button or hit F11 on boot. can you do that?

 

[Mentalpen]

added iso links for you

 

[Rogue]

You burn an iso as an image file, not a data file.

 

[Mikeyjp]

does your pc get through the boot screen then lock up at the point windows should load?

 

[marshall]

Those links are all the same as the ones i found so i have the windows home premium 64 bit

Yea all the boot screens go trough ok but at the point where the windows logo appears and it says "loading windows" it just freezes. I tried starting it in safe mode but it just hangs up when loading the necessary files.

Is it normal for an ISO to be recognised and openable in winrar?

Defo set to boot from hard drive, I checked that. No partitioned drive as its a pc I bought and built 2 years ago so wasn't a ready made unit.

What do you recommend to write the Iso to disk?

 

[mdking]

I normally use imgburn for burning ISO files. It's free and easy to use.

 

[GrumpyTwig]

Just google cdrtfe, no frills burning.

 

[marshall]

After a bit of googling it turns out that "English x64: X17-58997.iso" which is the Windows 7 Home Premium SP1-U ISO is actually corrupt which would be why its not working correctly.

Ive downloaded the ultimate version in the aim to unlock it so i can select the version i want and go from there.

Will let you know how i get on.

 

[Mentalpen]

the iso is NOT corrupt it is direct from microsoft!

 

[Mikeyjp]

the iso is NOT corrupt it is direct from microsoft!

if its from micrsoft it proberly is :tongue_smilie::jump1:

 

[marshall]

Files missing apparently :/

Will see how we get on. I wrote the iso to a disk and it did nothing. Just appeared on the disk as a compressed file

 

[Chrisgti6]

You need to use something like imgburn to extract and burn it to a DVD.

http://www.imgburn.com/

Chris

 

[marshall]

Hopefully this will help

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=11194

I hope after all this it was just an issue with Windows and reinstalling fixes it haha

 

[marshall]

Right.

Managed to get windows on a disk, or atleast i think i did. When i pop it in this pc it throws up an error sdaying it cant run a 64bit version of windows, which would make sense as this one is 32.

Pop it into other pc, boot from cd, and the disk loads...wicked. Go into start up repair like so


Then you see this screen


And its bar goes round and round for hours upon hours.

Shut down pc, go to restart and now it hangs on the first screen, wont enter boot options, wont go into the bios flash utility nothing, just sits there

Untitled by Lee Marshall, on Flickr

Any ideas? Im completely baffled

 

[GrumpyTwig]

As over on FB it sounds like it may be HDD issues, if you burn that ultimate boot cd to a cd and pop it in the same way as the windows disk it should boot from the CD without involving the HDD.

That way you can run a HDD test and maybe get some confirmation.

Out of interest what brand PC is it ? There looks to be a inbuilt recovery partition you hit F9 for, tried that?

 

[marshall]

Built it myself a few years back

gigabyte ma770t-ud3 motherboard and some other fancy bits plumbed in. I would give the full spec list but thats on the pc lol

Currently downloading UBCD and will write it to cd and see how it goes from there. I have bacjups on an ext drive but cant remeber the last time it was done so rather not risk losing anything...been reading that that ubcd can copy one hdd to another if its possible.

Yea tried F9, cant find an image to load from

 

[Mentalpen]

Have you tried a system restore? using the disk?

it can take hours to fix startup repair btw.

Does the HDD spin up at all?

 

[Spiders_o.0]

as you have got the system recovery options, have you opened the command prompt to run a check disk to find any errors with the hard drive?

 

[Mentalpen]

^^^^^^^
if you can't hear the hdd spin up then do this.