Windows 7 install hangs at "Setup is Starting"

Question

I am trying to reinstall Windows 7 from an install DVD but it hangs at "Setup is Starting" ad infinitum… I have tried using the repair option instead but it hangs with a blank screen (just the Windows 7 default background). I can’t even get any programs to run properly in cmd, diskpart just hangs at the “about” listing with a flashing cursor to tell me it's thinking for instance.

Answer 1

I've seen this issue before with issues caused by really (for lack of better word) messed up partition tables. No software is perfect and some partition problems can send the Windows disk manager into an infinite loop processing the entries. In my experience, it seems that this doesn't happen to the normal Windows disk manager but does happen to the WinPE disk management subsystem for some reason.

You can try this out by seeing if the same happens when the disks are disconnected or disabled in the BIOS. If setup proceeds, it's a problem with the disk subsystem. To see if it's an issue with the partition records, you can use a tool like dban or dd on linux to clear out the first few MB on the disk (dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=5m count=1 or similar) and see if that takes care of the problem - that's fixed it for me in the past.

I haven't been able to pin down exactly what causes it, but I think it's some combination of recursive partition table entries (e.g. an extended partition record pointing at the MBR or itself) with other partition problems (as by itself it's a fairly well-documented and trivial issue to work around).