11 replies to this topic

[Ian223]

Hello,

 

I’m experiencing issues in upgrading / installing Windows 8 Pro on my PC which had been formerly running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I have a Corsair 128GB SSD and a Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD, Win 7 was installed to the SSD. I’m averagely competent and familiar with installs / PC building, and BIOS management but far from fluent!

 

I upgraded to Win 8 from the Microsoft download directly off the computer without creating DVD/USB drive. This appeared to work, I was using Win 8 and configuring the Metro Start page; it ran probably for 60-90 minutes with no issues. I downloaded Firefox and was installing the Flash plugin when the PC crashed. When it tried to restart it returned an error along the lines “no bootable operating system found”. I opened BIOS to check it was attempting to boot from the SSD (the Seagate HDD was not in the Boot list).

 

On a laptop, also running Windows 7 Home Premium, I downloaded the Windows 8 file again to create a DVD from the .iso (using a link provided in the purchase confirmation email). That DVD I used to try reinstalling Windows 8 as a clean install.

 

There was already a drive partition on the SSD so I deleted those partitions and was installing to ‘Unallocated Space’ on the SSD (to try a clean install). A couple of minutes into the Windows 8 installation I received an error code 0x80070003.

 

I then tried the same process with a Windows 7 reinstall / repair CD I had from the laptop (as it was easy to hand). This returned the same error code at roughly the same place in the install; the only significant difference was that power was not delivered to the mouse during the setup menu.

 

I changed the BIOS settings to remove some overclock and slient fan profiles (returning settings to ‘standard’). Removed a USB wireless drive (Belkin), replaced my gaming keyboard with a basic Dell USB, removed the mouse, and switched monitor from HDMI to DVI connector. I also removed the connection from the Seagate HDD. I then tried with a second Windows 8 DVD I had burned from a different .iso file (this provided via a link Microsoft support sent me). Again I deleted disk partitions, this time I received 0x80070015.

 

I then tried the second Win8 DVD after changing my SATA configuration from AHCI (as it had been for attempts above) to IDE – receiving error 0x80070037.

 

For all, my boot sequence has been SSD, CDROM, Removable Dev.

 

Hardware is:

ASUS Sabertooth X58, BIOS revision 1304

Corsair 128GB SSD

Seagate Barracuda 1TB

ADATA XPG Gaming Series 8GB

2x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SE 1024MB

Antec TPQ-1200

 

 

The best I’ve had from Microsoft support is that the SSD is partially corrupt with no explanation how/why that would occur immediately upon trying to upgrade to Windows 8 having been stable running 7 for a year+?

 

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I cannot simply go and buy new SSD.

 

Many thanks,

 

Ian

[EuroFight]

It seems like you've done some extensive testing there, it would appear to me that the next best step would be to try to install Windows 8 onto the HDD to check if your SSD has died...

[SpikeSoprano]

What Euro said and also try to return your ssd back to factory default with whatever tool the manufacturer has.

[Ian223]

Thank you both. The HDD has been used as my back-up drive for a while so has a lot of existing content. It is not partitioned (or rather, is all a single partition - when I view it shows as Disk0 Partion 1), can I install Windows 8 on the HDD without losing the existing data?

 

Is there anything special required to do so or can I install directly into the partion and somehow avoid Windows formatting it?

[cjloki]

Thank you both. The HDD has been used as my back-up drive for a while so has a lot of existing content. It is not partitioned (or rather, is all a single partition - when I view it shows as Disk0 Partion 1), can I install Windows 8 on the HDD without losing the existing data?

 

Is there anything special required to do so or can I install directly into the partion and somehow avoid Windows formatting it?

if i remember right, whatever is existing on the drive will be saved and converted to a "windows old" file,...it will either show up on the desktop or the C: drive afterward...that is of course, unless you choose to reformat...but don't go by me, google is your friend

[EuroFight]

Usually there is an option during the install to shrink the current partition and create a new one on the unallocated space left on the disk. If you do this, your old data will show up as drive D:/ in Windows.

[Ian223]

 

Thank you both. The HDD has been used as my back-up drive for a while so has a lot of existing content. It is not partitioned (or rather, is all a single partition - when I view it shows as Disk0 Partion 1), can I install Windows 8 on the HDD without losing the existing data?

 

Is there anything special required to do so or can I install directly into the partion and somehow avoid Windows formatting it?

if i remember right, whatever is existing on the drive will be saved and converted to a "windows old" file,...it will either show up on the desktop or the C: drive afterward...that is of course, unless you choose to reformat...but don't go by me, google is your friend

 

 

I'm guession my Google skills are weak, but the specific question I think I need to answer is: does an install of Windows 8 (or 7) to a HDD which has data but has never had an OS installed on it (so a new install not an upgrade) maintain the existing data on that drive?

 

Or, because that drive may never have been formatted, or because Windows has to create a partition for system files, will the existing data be lost (because the existing partition needs to be split or similar)?

 

What I could find on Google all appeared to assume I was upgrading or clean installing Win 8 onto a HDD which had previously had a Windows OS.

[Ian223]

apologies - double post

Edited by Ian223, 25 February 2013 - 08:07 AM.

[Ian223]

Usually there is an option during the install to shrink the current partition and create a new one on the unallocated space left on the disk. If you do this, your old data will show up as drive D:/ in Windows.

 

Thanks Euro, I can see if this option is available during the Setup process on the DVD. I think I remember from previous Windows upgrades that this option exists if you're going through an 'upgrade' on an existing OS but haven't tried it on a new install.

[EuroFight]

Providing you boot from the DVD you should be good, I've done it on a clean install of Windows 7 before, but as of now I have very little experience with Windows 8.

[Ian223]

Gotcha, I'll give it a try tonight. Thank you

[SpikeSoprano]

what you can do is partition the hd before you install any os, it must be formatted or you would not see any files on it, so partition it leaving all your files on one partition and nothing on the other, then load the os on the partition that is empty, that should save all the data on the second partition.