Follow each point carefully and hopefully you'll avoid the frustration I went through! I find singing to myself semi-manically helps during such times...
To begin
Minimize comp configuration:
- Only 1 HDD; simply unplug all HDDs except the one you'll be installing to
- Only one chip of RAM (2GB in my case); (primary ram slot is usually closest to the processor)
- Only PS2 keyboard; (actually worked for me using USB keyboard)
- Should be fine to leave your video card/wireless card in
So, the back of your computer should now only have a power cable, DVI/VGA/HDMI and PS2/USB keyboard plugged in. Also, possibly a USB stick if you're using a USB flash drive to install (guide to creating a bootable Windows install flash drive here: http://themightygeek.com/?p=920)
Step 0, Optimize HDD as recommended at : (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html) I found this worked best by using CMD both to "cleanall" (not just "clean") and format NTFS
Step 1, Ensure BIOS boot order is set to boot from CD/DVD (or USB flash drive). With the Windows 7 DVD (or USB Flash drive) in your DVD drive , press any key when prompted 'Press any key to boot from CD / DVD...', as soon as the message is gone,
quickly press F8 to show the boot options list. Select Safe Mode and install 7. It will allow the initial stages & file copying.
Step 2, When the Window 7 installation has completed all the stages, such as copying, expanding, installing features, and then installing updates, it is going to restart; REMOVE THE DVD/USB BEFORE THE RESTART! Once restarted, you can reconfigure
BIOS to boot from your HDD (if you miss this then you will be you will be prompted to choose the boot device, choose HDD).
Step 3, When 7 restarts for the first time, spam F8 and select 'safe mode'. When you boot to SAFE MODE wait for a few minutes at the "SETUP IS STARTING WINDOWS FOR THE FIRST TIME" screen, then you'll get the popup that states "WINDOWS CANNOT CONTINUE
SETUP IN SAFE MODE, CLICK OK TO RESTART"
NOTE: DO NOT restart, AND DO NOT click on the 'X' (close button) in the upper-right of the pop-up. You are going to do steps 4, 5 & 6 first before clicking to restart!!!!!
Step 4, Simply press SHIFT+F10 (possibility of not working with USB keyboards although worked for me) - that will bring up a COMMAND PROMPT after a few seconds.
Step 5 From there you can enter COMPMGMTLAUNCHER
Step 6: Go to your device manager and disable:
- ALL your drivers that display the YELLOW TRIANGLE.
- ALL "unknown" device(s) drivers in any category.
(this can be time consuming using only a keyboard so use the "tab" key to cycle through menus, the "D" key to disable drivers and the "Y" key to confirm)
Also keep in mind that Video is always a huge culprit... just disable ALL unknown devices and ALL yellow triangles...
If you DO NOT know which is causing the problem AND you CANNOT see an obvious with a YELLOW TRIANGLE or EXCLAMATION POINT in Device Manager then try disabling any and changing any services from automatic to disabled for any that you don't recognize
or that seem VENDOR (software or hardware) specific.
Step 7: Once you have disabled all of your drivers press alt+F4 to exit. You can now close command window by clicking ok on the dialog box. Windows will now use a standard (with less functionality) when it restarts. The final setup should now complete
successfully.
Once the installation has finished (congratulations by the way) and you actually have a screen up & running you should be able to install your original drivers as well as re-enable these and devices A really useful site to identify/audit the components
you'll need to download drivers for can be found at http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Note: If you successfully install Windows 7 using this guide, but but are left with a corrupted or missing driver(s), I would suggest enabling only the internet driver and re-downloading all your drivers from the manufacture site.
I didn't write this entirely myself; I compiled and edited information from a few sources after exhausting a silly amount of options and time trying to fix this issue. Credit goes to SheilaP from http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproinstall/thread/7d765b66-17c6-46e8-94e2-dd39b5b504c1?prof=required;
and MKtorn from http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/175273-windows-7-freezes-completing-installation.html
Hope this helped!
SirYandi