I have verified the SHA1 hash of the download with
MD5 & SHA Checksum Utility, so I think the download is good.
I have tried creating the bootable USB with the Windows 7 DVD and USB Downloader and with
Rufus.
I have tried formatting the partition and unallocating the partition before the install and used BCDEdit to delete the boot entries between each try.
I get different results each time I try. Sometimes there is a failure during the first portion of setup with 0xc0000005. Sometimes the first boot fails with 0xc0000001 and sometimes with 0xc0000221 with different files being the failure. This last time
it reports ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt.
The sad/funny thing is, I had it running for a awhile but none of the Modern UI apps would run and had x's next to them in the Start Menu. This included the PC Settings app which meant that I couldn't get to the Preview Update screen to update to 9860.
So I decided to try a fresh install and haven't succeeded yet.
I have run memory checkers so I don't think it is RAM.
I guess my next step will be to try to use a smaller USB thumb drive (the current one is 64GB) or burn a DVD.
Any other thoughts?
ETA: Tried an 8GB USB stick. No joy. I did notice that the "Copying Windows files" step is almost instantaneous while the "Getting files ready for installation" step takes a while. Don't know if that means anything or not.
UPDATE: On a whim, I removed the PowerColor HD 5450 video card from my system and attempted the installation using the integrated VGA. This time it worked. I"ll try to add the video card back in now.