Setup Installation :: Can't Install 8.1 Preview On Older Computers
Jul 1, 2013
After 3 days of fruitless searching and multiple attempts to install 8.1 I finally found the answer. My hardware does not have the required LAHF/SAHF support nor does it support Prefe6tchW. Why this matters now withe the 8.1 update when it does not matter with 8 is beyond me.
See here: Can't install or upgrade to 8.1 Preview - Microsoft Community
My old, reliable Dell Precision 370 is now at the end of it's long, illustrious life as far as new updates. I'll have to stay with 8.
Windows 8.1 doesn't seem to like my 40GB IDE HDD, it won't seem to install no matter what. Upon selecting & formatting the partitions the setup just keep throwing 0x80070057 "Windows could not format a partition on disk 0" even if I reformat the HDD as per MS support article.
I rebooted into Windows 7 on my primary HDD and reformatted the 40GB HDD and attempted to install Windows 8.1, this time it gave me "Windows deployment engine could not initialize".
I tried something else, installed Windows 7 flawlessly on the 40GB HDD then proceeded to upgrade to Windows 8.1 via setup.exe. Everything went fine until the first reboot when it got stuck and hangs at exactly 77% with the fish and spinning orb. After around 30mins it reboots then asks me to 'Select Keyboard Layout" then requests which OS to select. From there I only have 'Windows Setup' and 'Windows 7'. Whenever I selecting 'Windows Setup' it ends up in black screen with the mouse cursor followed by a loop where it continuously asks me for Keyboard layout.
My Windows 8.1 x64 iso is not damaged (hashes are correct) nor is the 16GB boot USB disk that I used. What could possibly be wrong here? The HDD is a 11 year old Maxtor D540X-4D 5400RPM but it's fully functional (no errors in Windows 7 and correctly detected in my BIOS).
Fully wiping the HDD using GParted doesn't work either.
I decided to make a fresh install with a iso from the download page and use the key that they provide on that same page. Windows 8.1 Preview ISO files - Microsoft Windows. I tried english 64bit...
Running from windows 8 seamed to work but i didnt have 6.8 GB free .. So I go to boot from the iso and format the partition. But got the message saying , the key is invalid ... tried my own genuine windows 8 pro key .. also didn't work.
How to install Windows 8.1 Preview using a Local Account.
1. Input your email address. 2. Type anything in the password field, but not your real password. 3. The following should appear prompting you to create a Local Account. 4. Click on "create a local account now"
Downloaded WindowsBlue-ClientwithApps-64bit-English-X1899605.ISO from Microsoft Site Burned Into DVD and USB Flash Using Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool After booting from DVD or USB i stuck at the fish logo !! and the screen is turned off after 2 or 3 minutes with activity in USB or DVD !!
tried it several times using different HDD with no success
Windows 8 Installation is OK without a single problem
Motherboard Gigabyte EP35-DS3L Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7200 @ 2.53GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.5GHz Memory: 4096MB RAM ATI Radeon HD 3650 HDD : SAMSUNG HD753LJ , WDC WD3200AAJS-00B4A0 and SAMSUNG HD154UI
Finished a new build and installed Windows Pro 8.1. Accepted the option to have it synchronized with another existing Win 8 computer... it copied over all the apps and personalization settings, which was fine. But now I want to operate the new machine's personalization options separately. If I change a theme or something on one machine, it duplicates it on the other. Can't figure out how to de-couple the two machines.
I bought two new, cheap, Gateway computers for the office, but I need to get them upgraded to Pro so that I can join them to my domain. The computers are pretty decent, though, both w 4GB memory, and one's a dual core, and the other a quad; the dual rates at a 4.1 WEI, and the quad is a 4.5.
My Win 8 media was created from my MS Action Pack subscription and should be valid for upgrading this computer.
I tried all of the standard install options for Win 8 from that media, but each time the computer goes through the whole process and finally reboots itself back to where it was before and simply says "Windows 8 Upgrade Fails".
I've thought about wacking the partitions, and installing 8 from scratch, but I guess I'd rather not if I didn't have to...
how I can get this upgrade to go through?
Oh yeah, and where is the setup log? I looked in C:windowspanthersetuperr.log but that file was empty.
I have 10 computers with identical hardware that all have their own oem license. What I want is to have the same setup on all 10 computers. What I remember from previous Windows versions is that you had to activate Windows individually with its own oem key for every computer you restored with a preferred disk image. From what I read the product key procedure is a bit different in Windows 8 and that the key is stored in the bios? The activation should also be handled automatically by Windows, is that correct?
So what I really wonder is: Do I still have to activate every restored pc manually or will Windos 8 do this for me?
A second related question: Are there any imaging/cloning software that can be set up to promt me for a new computer name in the restore process?
I have an older laptop TOSHIBA. According to Microsft is compatible with Windows 8 I also managed to install the new OS. But I need to install Windows 8 some older drivers (for example, Windows 7).
Yesterday, my Windows 8.1 preview machine decided it was going to restart every 2 hours unless I install the full 8.1. The problem is that the store install doesn't work; when I click "download", I get a message saying "something happened and the install of 8.1 Preview can't be completed." I also lost my installation disc at some point, assuming that would even work. What should I do?
When Win 8.1 Preview was first released it installed without issue in a second partition on my Win 7 Pro Lenovo Edge E335 and created a standard dual boot setup. A week ago something or other started causing chaos in Win 7 though 8.1 still ran normally, but as 7 is my day-to-day system I needed to get it working normally again. Three different Acronis images restored OK but then each developed the same problems, so probably a rootkit was behind it all. Unable to overcome these problems I restored to factory condition, reinstalled my software and life returned to normal.
I then set about repartitioning to install Win 8.1 Preview again but hit a first problem when the same DVD and key I had used previously failed as the key was not accepted. Undaunted I tried again with a new key I found on the internet and this key did work. However the install then failed with the message that Win 8.1 can not be installed to an MBR disk, only to a GPT disk. Now this is the same disk that installed to the same MBR HDD previously, only the key being different.
Is the only solution to this to convert the entire disk to GPT and reinstall both 7 and 8.1 again? If so, that's a bit of a problem as my Win 7 was preinstalled to an MBR disk and I'm certainly not buying it again.
The Win 8 Pro/Win 7 Ult on the left relates to a different box.
I upgraded my computer's OS from W7 to Windows 8 some months ago. Not long after, I upgraded to the preview of the Windows 8.1 Pro. My Windows-license is legit, bought and valid. However, when I returned from my christmas holiday, I noticed the message in picture #2. Fair enough, I thought and proceeded forth.
Clicking 'Get Windows' got me to the screen pictured at #3. Oddly enough, I am unable to click any of the buttons, including Download, Home, Your apps and Your account. I can access the links further down on the page (which aren't included in this screencap) but for some reason I can't press anything else.
When I've tried to access the Windows 8 Store before this problem arised, even before I installed Windows 8.1, I have literally never been able to access the Windows 8 Store (See picture #1).
How do I go from here? I would like to register the Windows 8.1 ...
I'm trying to find the official Microsoft licence agreement for Windows 8.1 Preview - any link?
I want to use Windows 8.1 Preview in a VM on a Windows 7 PC.
Normally for the full version of Windows 8, and I guess Windows 8.1 when the full version arrives, you'd need a separate licence for the VM installation. But does this apply to the preview version as well?
I'm trying to find a definitive link on the Microsoft website...
I just got a new laptop, a Lenovo X230, for which I paid extra to have the OS on it as Windows 8 Pro.
So--now I have it, and Win 8 Pro 64 is installed and activated on it. I am a legal owner of Win 8 Pro.
However, I would like to do a clean install of Win 8 on the computer, to have it free of bloatware, etc. (In fact, I would like to set up a multi-boot with Win 7, and perhaps even triple boot with Xp as well. (I have installation media and my product keys for XP and 7 though, so those are not really a problem.)
The computer came with no discs at all. There is a procedure to make recovery disks. I may do that, but I think those will be to restore the computer to how it came from the factory, and therefore not usable for a clean install.
I don't see my product key for Win 8 anywhere. Not on the computer, not on any kind of card that came with it, etc.
I looked at the tutorial here for clean install of Windows 8, but it requires an install disc and product key. I have neither, although I am a legal owner of Windows 8.
Is there a way I can create (from my installed Windows 8) a win 8 install disk, that can be used for a clean install? Or a link to download one? Is there a way I can get my product key?
I am trying to upgrade from windows 8 pro to windows 8.1 on a samsung laptop. The download completes and installation starts.
After a while the following message appears "you cant install windows on a usb flash drive with setup"
I am not actually trying to install to a flash drive. I contacted Microsoft and after 5 hours they said that I should connect to the internet with a cable and not by wireless in order to solve the problem (this didn't work of course and I had told them that it was an install problem and not a download problem).
Until very recently i was running Windows 8 with a 240 GB Sandisk SSD as a primary and a 2 TB Western Digital Green HDD as a storage. I decided to set up a RAID 1 setup so i purchased a second 2 TB HDD and installed it.
My intent was to run windows 8 off the 240 SSD as a primary and have a RAID 1 setup for my 2TB HDDs.
I learnt that my data configuration was set to AHCI. I decided to do a complete clean install and change the sata configuration in BIOS to RAID.
After successfully creating a RAID volume using my 2TB HDDs i proceeded to install Windows off my primary. I am however having difficulties in that it will not allow me to install windows on either drive.
This video tutorial demonstrates how to clean install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which was released to the public on February 29, 2012 and expires on January 15, 2013. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is an open beta test presentation of Microsoft Windows 8, the successor to Windows 7 and next-generation client operating system from Microsoft Corporation.
In this demonstration, you will be shown how to free, legitimate copy of the Microsoft Windows 8 Consumer Preview, with product key, and install the operating system in a clean environment. In this video, the installation of the 64-bit version is demonstrated.
My laptop originally had Windows 8 installed on it on an SSD and an HDD. I have since wiped the drive clean. But now, I need to get Windows 8 back for work. How can I replicate the original layout with Windows 8 being put on both a SSD and a HDD. The nature of my work involves a lot of CAD software usage for projects as well as research and the like. As such, I would like for such software to be located on my SSD for faster speeds.
I have a Kingston SSDNow V200 128 GB SATA III 6 GB/s 2.5-Inch SSD I was using on my old Dell Precision 370. I now have a new Lenovo IdeaCenter K450 running Windows 8 X64 and I want to install the SSD in it.
This is what the drives look like now:
I want to clone the 1st 4 partitions plus the C: partition. I can reduce the size of my existing C: so everything will fit on the 128GB SSD. Anything I need to watch out for? I would think that cloning the existing setup should work. I will connect the SSD to the lowest SATA port, where the 2TB drive is now and move the other two drives up by one SATA port.
I am using bootcamp to run windows 7 on my mac. I recently used the windows 8 upgrade assistant to purchase windows 8. I received a product key and an .iso file but I decided to wait until a upgraded. Today my windows 7 crashed and I am unable to boot windows 7 anymore and i have a 'Missing Operating System' error. I have tried to recover windows 7 without success. So my question is: Can I install windows 8 on my mac through bootcamp by using a purchased upgrade key and if so how would i do it? I only have the windows 8 pro upgrade key which I had a backup of before the crash and i do not have the .iso file. Also would I still be able to use the upgrade key even though I am unable to access windows 7?
I'm running Windows 8.1 on an UEFI system, clean installed from my USB-key created with Rufus. But when I try to boot with this USB-key on my older PC (which does not have UEFI), then before installing Windows it says that there is no HDD or partition Windows can be installed in? I can then boot again with USB-key select rep. PC, start cmd, change the HDD to GPT, then Windows can be installed, but then it can't boot from the HDD!!
How do I make a bootable USBkey with Windows 7 or Windows 8 that can be installed on an ordinary MBR HDD? I need to make it on my system running GPT SSD.
I have tried this:
CMD (elevated) diskpart list disk select disk (selected my USB) clean create partition primary active assign exit
and then copied my windows 8 dvd onto it.
It will boot, but Windows will only install on a GPT HDD.
I was able to start the install of 8.1 Preview directly from the downloaded .iso file. Just double clicked on it to open in Windows Explorer then double clicked on setup.exe and off it went. This only works from a booted Windows 8 system (not sure about Windows 7).
[URL] .....
Didn't need to create a bootable flash drive or DVD.
I have recently purchased Windows 8 Pro Upgrade and for Christmas I will be getting my first SSD.
I want to do a clean install of 8.1 via USB, is this possible with the Windows 8 Pro Upgrade key? I have read through numerous tutorials and think I've got it right but just want some to clarify this will work.
Download the 8.1 ISO Use the generic key to run the installer Setup the PC Open PC Settings Change Product Key enter Win 8 Pro (upgrade) key and activate
Do I then need to do the reg edit and command prompt changes? Regedit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE Command prompt - slmgr /rearm Do I have this right or am I missing something?
Tried numerous times to install the update but keeps hanging when at "Applying PC Settings". It usually stops at around 84%, eventually the screen will go black only showing the cursor then finally it shows the bsod. The bsod says: driver power state failure.
I already have a Windows 8 Pro USB installer setup but I don't think it can be used to do a repair install for my Windows 8.1 Pro upgrade. So I'm trying to create a new USB installer setup specifically for Win 8.1 Pro. However, the Windows 8.1 setup window is not accepting the 8.1 Product Key that I extracted from Belarc, ProduKey and WPkey. Is there a way to get around that issue so that I can create the Win 8.1 USB installer?
I have Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate installed and activated. I am trying to upgrade to Windows 8 and the upgrade assistant tells me it needs at least 2gb when I have 8gb and Windows 7 sees and knows I have 8gb
I am thinking it could be my bios, but it's already at the latest version
Here are some photos from my bios, so you can tell me if there is anything I need to enable.
These are photos from my bios. I need to change to get this to work.
