SOLVED windows 7 will not install right on an 1150 system

[wagex]

ok so here are all the steps ive tried. it all began i need to replace a computer in our accounting department, figured id go xeon / ECC since the machine runs a pretty important sql server. so, i do the normal thing clone the disk over to the new ssd wont boot into windows, ok cool its a driver thing, so i run up a boot software to clear the drivers from the os, reboot. boom goes into windows fine, install drivers ect, reboot. hangs on windows screen. ok. thats weird. reboot. same thing.
steps ive tried.
-fresh install of windows 7 -it wont complete the installation it gets all the way to the last step then reboots to complete installation then it fails to load
-cloned the drive again - wouldnt boot at first, till i cleared the drivers again, booted into windows then wouldnt boot after restart
-fresh install windows 7 nothing
-new ram- nothing
-new motherboard - i was able to install a fresh copy of windows 7 fine. so i cloned the old drive onto it and tried to boot. it booted fine! yay! after a reboot it failed to boot again hanging on the windows loading screen.
-clear drivers again,- nope nothing fails same place still
-try fresh install of windows - nope wont complete last step.
-put the ssd in another computer - windows 7 finishes installing and boots fine.
-put ssd back into xeon machine. wont boot.


any ideas on what in the world could be going on here? at all?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Turn off fast boot?

 

[wagex]

Turn off fast boot?

its off

 

[Janus67]

Tried Legacy vs UEFI for the BIOS setting? Is it set to RAID or AHCI?

 

[wagex]

Tried Legacy vs UEFI for the BIOS setting? Is it set to RAID or AHCI?

all of the above

 

[Johan45]

I think it has to be a driver, a certain piece of HW isn't installing correctly. I'm not familiar with xeons but does windows7 need a driver for that chip?
I had a similar issue with a stripped Win7 and the only thing that got win to install was a full version with SP1. The install would get to the end then say it couldn't install some HW need to reboot and it would start all over again.

 

[Mpegger]

I think it has to be a driver, a certain piece of HW isn't installing correctly. I'm not familiar with xeons but does windows7 need a driver for that chip?
I had a similar issue with a stripped Win7 and the only thing that got win to install was a full version with SP1. The install would get to the end then say it couldn't install some HW need to reboot and it would start all over again.

This. ^

You're clearing the drivers and it's booting up fine, only to find hardware with missing drivers. So W7 installs it's stock drivers and then you can no longer get back in. And it happened on two different boards, so that (almost) rules out bad hardware. One of the drivers W7 is installing is causing the issue. Clear the drivers again, let it get back into Windows, and watch carefully what hardware it's finding and installing drivers for. Don't let it reboot after doing so, just go into Device Manager and disable all the non-critical hardware it installed drivers for and try to reboot. If it reboots just fine with just the bare essentials, great. Now all you have to do is figure out what hardware is causing issues by re-enabling them one-by-one and rebooting each time, and then find proper drivers for them.

 

[wagex]

interestingly enough it was the geforce gpu, it was an older pcie one i tossed in there had it laying around. tossed in an hd5450 booted just fine. everything is kosher. funny enough i put that same gpu in my desktop. works fine.
of course after fighting it for a week and finally posting here, setting up a whole different pc, that was the problem.

 

[trents]

interestingly enough it was the geforce gpu, it was an older pcie one i tossed in there had it laying around. tossed in an hd5450 booted just fine. everything is kosher. funny enough i put that same gpu in my desktop. works fine.
of course after fighting it for a week and finally posting here, setting up a whole different pc, that was the problem.

That is so typical, isn't it! That's why I'm glad I've got more time than money, as the old saying goes.

 

[Johan45]

Nice to see it was a simple fix wagex

 

[trents]

I had this Geforce 620 video card that would only work in AMD systems. It was very weird. Wouldn't display at all in an Intel-based rig.

 

[wagex]

I had this Geforce 620 video card that would only work in AMD systems. It was very weird. Wouldn't display at all in an Intel-based rig.

interesting this card is a geforce 6200 and it works fine in my machine which is an AMD APU.