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reinstalling W7 to new HDD in Precision m4500 - not working
I have a similar problem that is posted here. I replaced my HDD (old was damaged) with a totally new one. When using the original reinstallation disks that came with my Dell Precision M4500, it goes thru all the installation steps and it says, "Setup will continue after restartïng Windows." Then the pc restarts itself but comes up with not able to finish installation. The happened 3x. I tried the suggestion from another user to change in the bios from RAID to AHCI. I did this and the installation finally finished. I then installed all the drivers according to the order specified by dell. Then when I finally got connected to the internet, installed AVG anti-virus and the Windows update automatically did an update and said to restart. I did the restart and now the pc comes up with: Startup Repair window - "your computer was unable to to start"
Now this window is going for ages. (approaching 1hr now). Anyone know why this would be happening on a complete new HDD and new reinstallation. There should be no "repair" needed as it is a new installation and not repairing any old files or OS.
Completely dumbfounded I am. Any help is greatly appreciated.
bazzeeda
12 Posts
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January 31st, 2014 15:00
Update: now I am in the proverbial "startup repair" loop. Have even tried installing windows completely new again 3x. Still get the loops every time.
bazzeeda
12 Posts
0
February 1st, 2014 00:00
Update: was able to get windows to install on the 4th time. Reinstalled the drivers from the Resource Media disks that came originally with the pc and according to the Dell procedure and order. I did not deviate from it at all. After I started the windows update. After which the pc needed a restart, which I did and again the Startup Repair comes again. This time Root cause found: Boot critical file d:\windows\system32\drivers\ntfs.sys is corrupt.
This is complete madness. And it seems to have no way to get out of these never ending Startup Repair loops besides a new installation.
Do I have to send this to Dell service?
Help desparately needed....
N7U
615 Posts
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February 1st, 2014 01:00
Bazzeeda,
One of the Dell Rockstars and Diamond member of the Dell Community publishes a series of guides for clean installation of windows on Dell systems ...have a look.
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/
bazzeeda
12 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2014 07:00
@ N7U: Thanks for your reply and hint. I will try it now and see how that works out.
Latest status now is: Startup and Repair diagnosis and repair log:
Number of repair attempts 7
Root cause found: Startup repair hast tried several times but still cannot determine the cause of the problem.
Stuck in this horrid "startup repair" loop. Can me maddening, I hope I can have better luck with the link you sent.
Will get back with the results.
N7U
615 Posts
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February 2nd, 2014 08:00
Hi Bazzeeda,
I read back over your original post. Let me see if I understand properly. Your have disabled the RAID configuration...what I presume was a RAID0? If that's the case you may need to assign the drives separately in BIOS (I don't have the BIOS Menu layout in front of me...but some don't automatically re-assign a drive taken out of a RAID array) If you're comfortable doing so, I might recommend simply disconnecting the 2nd HDD altogether while you get the windows installation up and running. If it takes, you'll know you have settings to change. If you can provide more detail about what sort of RAID was setup previously and the exact changes you made...ie setting to AHCI? Another thing to mention here is that if you had "mirrored" or RAID1 configuration your PC is looking at a backup that was "an exact representation of another set of data" ...so if it was a bad install that was mirrored, it's looking there for validation. Let me know if you need more help...I can always call for backup ...we have a couple guys that are REALLY good with Storage and RAID.