Help/Problem installing Windows 7

[DirkDiggler87]

I'm trying to help a friend with a NEW build and I'm having an issue installing Windows 7. AMD FX-9370 processor with GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard.

When I "press any key" to boot from the cd/dvd it goes to the black screen with a gray bar at the bottom and loads the files, after that it goes to the next screen which is the Windows animation, a few seconds later the machine automatically reboots. Sometimes I get to see the blue screen that says "Setup is starting Windows" for a split second before it reboots.

This is a brand new, legit copy of 7 he purchased from NewEgg. But to be safe I did try booting from a USB flash drive with the exact same issue.

I am able to enter the Windows 7 setup in safe mode. The setup will run and install Windows 7 in safe mode but after the install reboots the machine I have the same issue with the constant reboot loop after the Windows animation is displayed.

Next I swapped out the Windows 7 DVD for my old Windows XP CD and I was able to install and run XP with no problems.

I assume that since XP runs fine its not a hardware issue?

I am stumped as to what the problem could be. Any help/suggestions will be much appreciate.

 

[Alaric]

Did you try setting the SATA to IDE? If AHCI isn't enabled in some older Win7 releases the AHCI driver isn't installed by default. You have to use IDE , install the driver from in Windows , then reboot and change to AHCI in the BIOS.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I'm trying to help a friend with a NEW build and I'm having an issue installing Windows 7. AMD FX-9370 processor with GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard.

When I "press any key" to boot from the cd/dvd it goes to the black screen with a gray bar at the bottom and loads the files, after that it goes to the next screen which is the Windows animation, a few seconds later the machine automatically reboots. Sometimes I get to see the blue screen that says "Setup is starting Windows" for a split second before it reboots.

This is a brand new, legit copy of 7 he purchased from NewEgg. But to be safe I did try booting from a USB flash drive with the exact same issue.

I am able to enter the Windows 7 setup in safe mode. The setup will run and install Windows 7 in safe mode but after the install reboots the machine I have the same issue with the constant reboot loop after the Windows animation is displayed.

Next I swapped out the Windows 7 DVD for my old Windows XP CD and I was able to install and run XP with no problems.

I assume that since XP runs fine its not a hardware issue?

I am stumped as to what the problem could be. Any help/suggestions will be much appreciate.

Sounds like unstable hardware to me. It may be RAM-related.

(BTW, an unstable OC can have the same symptoms, only earlier OS works without crashing.) (And later Windows version always crashes under load.)

 

[DirkDiggler87]

Did you try setting the SATA to IDE? If AHCI isn't enabled in some older Win7 releases the AHCI driver isn't installed by default. You have to use IDE , install the driver from in Windows , then reboot and change to AHCI in the BIOS.

I did try changing the SATA to IDE mode. This is the only way I could get XP to work on it.

Sounds like unstable hardware to me. It may be RAM-related.

(BTW, an unstable OC can have the same symptoms, only earlier OS works without crashing.) (And later Windows version always crashes under load.)

Not sure if by OC you mean over clocked? If so all settings are set to default nothing has been changed at all.

I thought about the ram being an issue. Tried using one stick and does the same thing. Also ran a bootable version of memtest and it passed all test with 0 errors.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference but the version of 7 I'm using is 64 bit.

When I was downloading the bios from the gigabyte website (from my own machine) I noticed all of the files are in 32 bit format.

Could this be the issue? Does it even matter? I figured the processor was the determining factor for this.

I don't have a 32 bit version of 7 to try on it.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Not sure if by OC you mean over clocked? If so all settings are set to default nothing has been changed at all.

I thought about the ram being an issue. Tried using one stick and does the same thing. Also ran a bootable version of memtest and it passed all test with 0 errors.

OC is overclocked. I used brackets to let you know that it's also a symptom I came across with an unstable CPU core OC.