'windows could not complete the installation' - HELP i am stuck in a loop

Question

My drive broke so I went and bought a hard drive from dell, i bought a WD blue hard drive, 1TB SATA / 64 mb  WD 10EZEX I though this should be easy, just  pop in the reboot windows 7 disc and away I go, well was not the case. It went through all the stages fine then after a restart a message came up. 'windows could not complete the installation. To install windows on this computer restart the installation.' I am now stuch in a loop--, mesage restart, message restart. I try putting the disc in again but it does not restart the disc it just picks up where it left of. I think that maybe i got a sata drive and am trying to put it on a raid, or something like that i am not sure, been googleing posts. I got a Dell studio xps 8100, it is about 3 years old, i do not think the windows 7 disc had pack 1 on it, disc just says, 'windows 7 premium 64-bit' What do i do now?  do i wipe the new disc and start again with altering setting beforei put disc in again, if so how do i wipe drive? Please can anybody advice me how to get new drive working. i am stuck in the loop from hell thanks

TECHNOKING · Answer

run epsa and give the error to the tech supprot

osprey4 · Answer

Hi Paulfromwales,

I've got the same model and have reinstalled Windows 7 several times, so let me see if I can help. Your Windows 7 disc probably does not have SP1, so you might want to download it to a flash drive for installation later.

Ok, you said you are trying to put it in RAID. Do you have just the one hard drive? When you boot to the BIOS, is the controller mode set to RAID? That does NOT mean your system is running an actual disk array, just the controller mode.

paulFromWales · Answer

Hi OSPREY4, thanks for help...

I assume i am trying to put it into a RAID, this side of stuff baffles me...

I only got one hard drive, i bought a new one, put it in and thought it would be plain sailing once i put disc in dohh!!

You say to download the SP1, will do, though when i put that on you will have to let me know.

When i go into BIOS in the advanced chipset setting it says 'SATA mode: [RAID] .

In the boot settings it say'1st boot device: [RAID: WDC WD10EZEX-1]

If you tell me what info you need and from where i can find it, i can tell you.

thanks again for help, i would think it is not complicated what needs to be done, but when you do not know what to do, it might as well be.

I know i said i was trying to put in into a RAID, that might not be the case, so if you let me know what inof from CMOS setup utility you need to know i can pass info so you can take me out of the loop of hell!

many many thanks

paul

osprey4 · Answer

Hi Paul, Try setting the SATA mode to ATA.

paulFromWales · Answer

Hi,

I went into advanced chipset and changed SATA to ATA, assume that is what you meant.

I was then stuck in a different loop, it would restart, go to a black screen then i get a 'windows error recovery', options like restart normally etc, a restart a black screen ,then back to the 'windows error recovery', this is a new loop, but no joy sorry to say.

Any other advice?

thanks

paul

osprey4 · Answer

Sorry, I should have explained that you need to start the installation over by booting to your Windows 7 disc. I've got a link below to a Windows reinstallation guide that might be helpful. It also explains how to install all of the drivers.

Storage, Drives & Media

run epsa and give the error to the tech supprot

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