New instal of Windows 7 not working.....
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Monday, 26 October 2009 5:43 PMI had a hard drive that I cleaned and formatted. I put it in my computer to instal Win 7 and it is not working. I have had several different problems.
The first time I tried as it got close to completing the expanding files stage I would get an error message saying that there was a corrupt file. I contined attempting instalation over and over and eventually it passed that point and Win 7 did instal. When I got into Windows nothing was working properly. I could not instal programs. I restarted the computer. Then on restart it asked for the boot disk and when I put that in it then attempted to reinstal windows. I tried to repair it but nothing worked.
I pulled the hard drive out again cleared it and reformatted the drive again. Now this time I get to the point where I enter the product Key and it says it is not a vaild key. I am not typing it wrong, I have entered the key several times and it always says it is not a valid key.
What is going on?? I am almost half tempted to just ditch windows altogether at this point and just instal Linux and be done with it........
All Replies
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Monday, 26 October 2009 6:01 PMHello natemoen,
Receiving the "not a valid product key" error message at that stage of Setup usually means that there is a mismatch between the "flavor" of the installation disc you are using and the "flavor" of the product key.
How did you acquire the disc and the PK?
For great advice on all topics XP, visit http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp -
Monday, 26 October 2009 6:10 PMPurchased it from my school. It worked once, now the second time its not working.
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Monday, 26 October 2009 6:13 PMYour issue may be related to the manner in which you installed a Windows 7 Upgrade version. Please see Finally, some answers to Windows 7 upgrade questions for a possible solution.
Carey Frisch -
Monday, 26 October 2009 7:01 PMOwner Hello Natemoen,
Given the past issues you've described with installing (which could be caused by a hard drive beginning to go out, possibly a bad stick of ram or maybe a defective install disk, to name a few possibilities) I believe your current issue is related to another bad install. You know the key is good because it worked before. The fact that Windows isn't accepting it now suggests there is something wrong with that install of Windows.
Like Vista, Windows 7 allows the user to install without entering a Product Key(called a Keyless install). You can try a Keyless install. Once the install is complete, click the "Start" button, Right-click "Computer' and then select "Properties". In the windows that comes up, click "Change Product Key" and enter the Product Key that came with Windows. If that doesn't work, I can only suggest reinstalling.
If you continue having problems installing, I recommend either posting in the Windows 7 Answers Forum http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/windows7 or contacting Windows 7 support at http://support.microsoft.com.
Hope that helps,
Darin MS- Marked As Answer by Darin Smith MSOwner Monday, 26 October 2009 7:04 PM
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Wednesday, 28 October 2009 6:48 PM
I had a hard drive that I cleaned and formatted. I put it in my computer to instal Win 7 and it is not working. I have had several different problems.
The first time I tried as it got close to completing the expanding files stage I would get an error message saying that there was a corrupt file. I contined attempting instalation over and over and eventually it passed that point and Win 7 did instal. When I got into Windows nothing was working properly. I could not instal programs. I restarted the computer. Then on restart it asked for the boot disk and when I put that in it then attempted to reinstal windows. I tried to repair it but nothing worked.
I pulled the hard drive out again cleared it and reformatted the drive again. Now this time I get to the point where I enter the product Key and it says it is not a vaild key. I am not typing it wrong, I have entered the key several times and it always says it is not a valid key.
What is going on?? I am almost half tempted to just ditch windows altogether at this point and just instal Linux and be done with it........
Your hard drive is failing, this happened to me on one machine when I used up to date diagnostics on the HD, it ended up having bad sectors, no Good running HD should have Bad sectors, this means the HD is doomed to fail soon. Sorry but Linux is not sophisticated enough to pick up on it as Win 7 is.
