Win 7 disc error

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pillar

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Heres my situation: my mom recently got herself a new laptop. Unfortunately it has Win 8 on it (no real choice on that). So I helped her to order Win 7 HP 64-bit. While I was working on getting Win 7 installed on her laptop, the screen brought up a message saying that winload.efi was either damaged or corrupt.

My question is how can I remedy this situation? I have delayed the process of getting the OS onto her laptop as it is & now im stuck because of this issue. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
 
Install Linux. Nuff said. :P

No but really, that should help you. I'm not a huge fan of Windows 8. Yeah it has more security than Windows 7, but I hate the tile screen.
 
pillar said:
Heres my situation: my mom recently got herself a new laptop. Unfortunately it has Win 8 on it (no real choice on that). So I helped her to order Win 7 HP 64-bit. While I was working on getting Win 7 installed on her laptop, the screen brought up a message saying that winload.efi was either damaged or corrupt.

My question is how can I remedy this situation? I have delayed the process of getting the OS onto her laptop as it is & now im stuck because of this issue. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
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There's no problem with Windows 8, installing an antiquated version of Windows doesn't "fix" anything at all.

In any case, you should try deleting all partitions and starting anew.
 
Ya im thinking bout deleting all the partitions because I bought myself an 8gb flash drive & installed win 7 hp 64-bit on it & tried installin it & it gave me the exact same error. The file that I installed was an iso file, so I know theres no way the file could be corrupt. Got the file from a legit Microsoft distributor.

Heres my question tho. Ive never tried completely wiping a laptop hard drive of its partitions and then installing a fresh copy of windows. I will go search on Youtube tho. Any simple ideas? I used to use Partition Magic/Wizard on my desktop, but thats been easily 1-2 years now.
 
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Yes, when I did pull out the original disc from the optical drive, I did notice more than 1 scratch. However, there was 1 scratch which I believe did cause the issue. Anyways, I just downloaded EaseUS partition software & am working on partitioning the hard drive. For whatever reason, when it comes to having Win 7 on my usb drive, it doesnt give me the option to delete the partition & reformat it.

I know for a fact that I cant delete the primary partition with this software while the os is going. I will go search out possible command prompt codes to format it outside of the OS. Havent used command prompt in a while either.
 
Most modern optical drives can read thru scratches unless the scratch is on a deep level. I've installed Windows 7 with the same disc for 3 years now and trust me, it's been thru hell.

As for deleting partitions while being outside the OS, simply stick in a Windows 7 disc. Before you click "Install now", you'll see something that says "Advanced Options" or "recovery options" or "fix broken boot up", something along those lines. Click the command prompt and it'll run from X, or whatever your optical drive is registered to.

From that screen, since it's running off your disc, you are able to unmount your hard drive and format it completely.
 
So heres the latest on this issue:

I was finally able to get to the command prompt and wipe the hard drive of Win 8 (yay)! However, I tried using the dvd drive to read the win 7 disc & the laptop said it could not authenticate it. Also would not recognize the usb drive that I made into a bootable version of win 7.

Any ideas? Right now this laptop is a sitting paper weight & im not happy bout this.

I know this sounds bad, but I do have an unused copy of Win 98 that is still legit (I know thats lame, but right now its my only option).
 
what?

this makes no sense.

why is your laptop dictating a windows installation? lol. if you wiped your hard drive clean of windows 8 completely and it has no other public data, your laptop doesn't have the authority or directions to tell what's authentic and what's not. it should simply receive commands.

also, just bear in mind, unless you order specifically from the Microsoft store itself, nothing is ever 100% authentic. sure, there's distributors of windows 7/8, but unless you have the windows 7/8 seal of authenticity, it's not authentic.

a reason why it would spit the windows 7 installation back is due to a faulty download process. data being lost in mid stream.

The file that I installed was an iso file, so I know theres no way the file could be corrupt. Got the file from a legit Microsoft distributor.
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Distributors don't ship your installation DVDs in .iso format. It should be a bootable disc and when you stick it in, you'll see all the proper Windows files. Not something like win_7_en_386x.iso

did you compare the hashes to confirm 100% all data is accounted for if you downloaded it?
 
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Well heres the thing on that. The dvd is legit that I bought off ebay. For whatever reason the laptop doesnt want to recognize the stupid dvd.

Also the iso file is on a flash drive. For whatever weird reason, I had to reformat the flash drive because it couldnt read the win 7 file on it. Its like win 8 did something bad to it & made it not readable (if that makes any sense). Anyways, I reformated the flash drive & have win 7 on it. Ill work on it tomorrow (if I have the energy for it).
 
It's not legit if you bought it off ebay, I'm sorry. No matter what someone writes, anyone can print a Microsoft label, paste it on a DVD, and then sell it as genuine software.

Let me know how it goes.
 
pillar said:
Well heres the thing on that. The dvd is legit that I bought off ebay. For whatever reason the laptop doesnt want to recognize the stupid dvd.

Also the iso file is on a flash drive. For whatever weird reason, I had to reformat the flash drive because it couldnt read the win 7 file on it. Its like win 8 did something bad to it & made it not readable (if that makes any sense). Anyways, I reformated the flash drive & have win 7 on it. Ill work on it tomorrow (if I have the energy for it).
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http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/17058-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi.html

Secure boot prevents ?unauthorized? operating systems and software from loading during the startup process.
Click to expand...
 
@frankth3frizz, your answer helped my mind to think.

I went into UEFI (still wanna call it BIOS after all these years), but ya I check into Secure Boot & whatcha know, it was indeed enabled. Thats what was causing all the fuss. It wasnt at all winload.efi that was the issue, because im using the original dvd & its running fine now.

Heres an update: I thought that the disc was bad so I was able to burn win 7 onto a dvd & run that. Its at the "Starting Windows" screen, but im thinking that it should have already processed all the memory at this point. Then again, its been years since ive installed win 7 on my desktop. Is there a bigger delay in a laptop by chance?
 
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So heres the latest update:

Ive burned another version of win 7 disc (cause the original has a slight scratch) and both only go to the "Starting Windows" screen before getting stuck there.

I just happen to have a legit copy of win 98 & the laptop wont recognize that. I decided to download win xp pro & burn that onto a cd & the laptop wont recognize that. Any reason why?
 
pillar said:
i just happen to have a legit copy of win 98 & the laptop wont recognize that. I decided to download win xp pro & burn that onto a cd & the laptop wont recognize that. Any reason why?
Click to expand...

uefi
 
Is it possible to get uefi to override or overlook this by chance? As you can tell I have no experience with uefi.

*EDIT* FINALLY, figured out why I was having issues with the installation. I also checked into it & found out that Legacy Boot was disabled. Enabled it so that I could install win xp (temp).
 
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Ok so heres my new issue: my mom has this external dvd drive by iomega. Problem is that the OS cant read the driver on it. Im looking and apparently theres no available drivers for it.

Any ideas?
 
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