When I try to install Windows 7 on dell inspiron 1420 which came with Ubuntu freezes at the beginning of installation

Question

I have searched many forums and tried a lot of suggested solutions but nothing works. I am sure that installation disk is ok cause it worked before (I was able to install Windows7 on my other notebook - MSI).

What happens is:

I boot with installation CD, it says 'Windows is loading files...' Then it says Starting Windows (mouse laser works at that moment).

Then I get the screen with window which has a title "Install Windows" with options to choose language, keyboard, etc. and asking me to click next. But, the problem is that at that moment mouse and keyboard don't work at all. Mouse's laser is turned off, and if I press CAPS LOCK on keyboard it doesn't turn the LED on.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I have finally solved my problem.

The problem was that I somehow messed up my MBR. I am sure that this was the problem cause when it tried to boot from hdd (and not from optical device) even though my hdd was empty it beeped and I had several strange characters displayed on the screen.

When I fixed MBR this messed up characters turned into "Missing Operating System" message. I then restarted my notebook and used Windows 7 dvd to install Windows and everything worked just fine.

I've fixed MBR with Hiren's boot cd ver 9.7 by using one of the following two programs in it: Paragon Partition Manager 7.0.1274 (I selected the bootable partition and said fix it) and BootFix Utility. I am not sure which one of these two actually did the job.

Answer 2

Check the BIOS:

In some systems I've noticed an option for OS - it'll say something like "Windows 7", "Windows Vista" or "Other". Trying to install Linux while Windows is selected will cause the installation to hang. Trying to install Windows with "Other" selected will cause it to hang as well.

As far as I can tell, this only has an effect on the installation: for merely running the OS, I haven't noticed any difference in which is selected

Hope that helps!