Hi all. I've been trying for several days now to fix a problem and I'm finally at my wits end. I can find a lot of threads with similar problems, but none of the solutions I've found there seem to work for me. I'm trying to install windows 7 ultimate onto a sata drive. I'm using an HP elitebook 8770w. The specs are here:
INFO
The comptuer has two hard drives, a 250gb sata and 1tb normal. The partitions are here, both in gparted and the windows 7 installer.
PARTITIONS
I first formatted both drives and then tried to install win7 onto the sata drive. It installed, but not properly. None of the computers hardware was recognized. In the devices manager "John-PC" had a little yellow error triangle next to the list of hardware right down the list; every option had an error.
I tried formatting the disks again and then I got a black screen of death after the first shut down of the installation process. No mouse, no logo, no blinking lights; nothing, though if I leave the USB in I get an option telling me to press any button to install from usb, and then it freezes there. If I remove the usb, it boots to the black screen of death with nothing. I tried every port for installation, including the two usb 3.0 ports, the two usb 2.0 ports and the sata port. I tried an iso usb with usb 3.0 drivers pre-loaded. No fix. I tried several different combinations in the BIOS including factory reset, IDE, AHCI, Legacy, UEFI, and various boot order combinations. I also tried a bios diagnostics test which indicated everything was fine.
I've tried using unetbootin, windows 7 usb creator, and rufus to format the bootable usb. On one of those occasions I tried putting a copy of xp on the bootable usb, and when I tried to install it, the win 7 installer opened up and finished the installation again like the first time through, but also again none of the drivers worked. To fix this I downloaded a multitude of drivers from the HP website and some of them worked, though one of them (a win7-64 driverpack update, I think) once again put the machine back to the black screen of death upon restarting and now I'm right back to where I was, not able to get past the BSOD.
I've tried reformatting the ssd to ntfs with gparted, win disk (something about cleaning the partition, I think), and the win 7 installer.
Here's what my BIOS settings look like as I'm trying to install.
BOOT MENU
DEVICES MENU
In the boot menu there is a section to organize the boot order, and I've set the sata drive at the very start of it. However, just before the BIOS comes up, there's an option to press f9 to set an override boot order. This is the boot order override screen when I press f9...
The usb's and the notebook harddrive both show up. Also, the HP_TOOLS partion has a system restore back up folder I made on the win 7 machine when it was working and I was installing the drivers, but I can't access that folder via the win 7 installer. I can access it on my linux mint live cd usb, though.
So, that's what I'm up to. It seems the windows installation isn't recognizing the sata drive, as it's absent no matter what settings I change in the BIOS, but that doesn't explain why the OS won't install on the 1tb drive, either. I get the BSOD when tring to install on either drive.
Please help!
INFO
The comptuer has two hard drives, a 250gb sata and 1tb normal. The partitions are here, both in gparted and the windows 7 installer.
PARTITIONS
I first formatted both drives and then tried to install win7 onto the sata drive. It installed, but not properly. None of the computers hardware was recognized. In the devices manager "John-PC" had a little yellow error triangle next to the list of hardware right down the list; every option had an error.
I tried formatting the disks again and then I got a black screen of death after the first shut down of the installation process. No mouse, no logo, no blinking lights; nothing, though if I leave the USB in I get an option telling me to press any button to install from usb, and then it freezes there. If I remove the usb, it boots to the black screen of death with nothing. I tried every port for installation, including the two usb 3.0 ports, the two usb 2.0 ports and the sata port. I tried an iso usb with usb 3.0 drivers pre-loaded. No fix. I tried several different combinations in the BIOS including factory reset, IDE, AHCI, Legacy, UEFI, and various boot order combinations. I also tried a bios diagnostics test which indicated everything was fine.
I've tried using unetbootin, windows 7 usb creator, and rufus to format the bootable usb. On one of those occasions I tried putting a copy of xp on the bootable usb, and when I tried to install it, the win 7 installer opened up and finished the installation again like the first time through, but also again none of the drivers worked. To fix this I downloaded a multitude of drivers from the HP website and some of them worked, though one of them (a win7-64 driverpack update, I think) once again put the machine back to the black screen of death upon restarting and now I'm right back to where I was, not able to get past the BSOD.
I've tried reformatting the ssd to ntfs with gparted, win disk (something about cleaning the partition, I think), and the win 7 installer.
Here's what my BIOS settings look like as I'm trying to install.
BOOT MENU
DEVICES MENU
In the boot menu there is a section to organize the boot order, and I've set the sata drive at the very start of it. However, just before the BIOS comes up, there's an option to press f9 to set an override boot order. This is the boot order override screen when I press f9...
The usb's and the notebook harddrive both show up. Also, the HP_TOOLS partion has a system restore back up folder I made on the win 7 machine when it was working and I was installing the drivers, but I can't access that folder via the win 7 installer. I can access it on my linux mint live cd usb, though.
So, that's what I'm up to. It seems the windows installation isn't recognizing the sata drive, as it's absent no matter what settings I change in the BIOS, but that doesn't explain why the OS won't install on the 1tb drive, either. I get the BSOD when tring to install on either drive.
Please help!
