On 1 Mar 2014, at 4:34, Graham Perrin wrote:
If clean installation fails (if erasing everything doesn't allow
Windows to
install) then I'd suspect a hardware problem, check the hard disk
drive.
thanks for these tips. In the end we could not even get a clean instal
to run so I think his mum's shipped it back to manufacturer.
<semi-OT story indulgence>
I said when he bought a Win machine that I wouldn't be able to do much
support if something went wrong but I was surrounded by people who don't
really understand the architecture of the whole thing and everyone kept
reminding me I didn't know what I was doing, by my own admission. So
his mum kept getting people to ring me to help (me in single quotes,
other local friends, feeling they must help, in double)
'Windows has somehow got corrupted. I've tried doing an upgrade to
replace it without erasing his files but it says the disk is not
partitioned properly for it, which doesn't make sense as we used this
installer in the first place to partition the disk. But it won't let me
repartition the disk. I've tried creating another partition to do a
custom clean install but I hit the same problem'
"<long silence, thinking>have you tried rebooting?"
'Yes, it sends me to various things that try to repair the disk but none
work. I've tried every possible way to start from the harddrive and none
of them work. Currently we're booted from the installer DVD.'
"What about Safe Mode?"...
for many hours...
In the endI put Windows on a separate hard drive (on my Mac Pro) and
posted it to them but they sent the machine back instead;)
Doesn't help that the installer DVD won't let me write to a USB drive. I
was halfway through turning it into a hackintosh just to test the damned
hard drive when we ran out of time...
Ultimate Boot CD <http://www.ultimatebootcd.com> (UBCD) – after
booting
from the disc, then hdat2 should be able to check the disk.
Only a month old … if the disk is OK, then you can use Parted Magic
(also
on UBCD) to remove all partitions from the disk before another attempt
at
clean installation.
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