Closing a window ...

Ho hum

So much for trying out Windows 7 ...

First try - needed to burn another install dvd because the first one didn't burn correctly. Using the bundled Power2Go software (and leaving the laptop alone to do the burn without playing music at the same time ...) worked where Active ISO Burner failed.

Next tries - why's it giving a "Starting Windows" black screen and not much else ... Apart from a little red dot in the middle of the screen. This "Starting Windows" screen was staying up there for quite some time too without it getting any further.

Troubleshooting things - tried the boot without both hard discs, no joy.

Which is when you start hunting on the interweb ... (Google knows all). Finding this forum post (linked) answered a few questions ... It pointed the finger at the disc interface. The fella in the forum post struggled with an Abit UL8 motherboard using a ULI M1689 chipset. He identified his issue by switching his disc interface from SATA mode to RAID mode. The Win 7 install procedure could then start but would then have trouble seeing drives.

My Asus A8R32-MVP motherboard is subtly different but shares ULI hardware dealing with its disc interfaces. There's a ULI M1575 South Bridge in there which is what the disc drives connect to. It has a Silicon Image chip in there too for another hard disc but I'm a bit wary about trying that one. There's another hard disc in the machine that I want to keep totally separate from the Windows 7 test and I'm not sure how it would interact with a drive on the Silicon Image chip.

So - troubleshooting steps, based on the forum post above :

There's 3 options in the Bios :

SATA Mode - Emulated PATA Mode
Default mode, works with 2x WinXP drives flawlessly. Stuck at "Starting Windows" screen, not allowing the Windows 7 installation to start.

SATA Mode - AHCI Mode
Not used this before, trying it with a WinXP drive led to a BSOD as Windows was starting. (Not good). Tapping this blog post on the laptop now while watching the cricket, seeing if a Long Wait will see any action with the Windows 7 installation. (Not hopeful)

RAID Mode
This gets the Windows 7 install starting but because I don't have a RAID compatible setup, no drives appear to the system. So the Win7 install gets as far as asking "ok, where to?" before it cannot continue due to no drives.

The next place to look would be "ok, just get Windows7 compatible drivers for the mainboard" but digging a little further it looks like there's been some naughty business going on here. The ULI chipset in my A8R32MVP is part of an ATI Crossfire setup. And it looks like nVidia have bought out ULI and quietly killed off the driver support.

So - looks like I now have a choice between : Spend Money on upgrade, Abandon Windows 7 test.

Because my main system still works pretty well for games, I'll be saving my money. And maybe even trying Linux for a change :-) At least this one got caught before anything got deleted off my 2 hard discs, so it's not a trashing of the system. Phew !

PS At least it gives me an excuse for continuing my Anti-Nvidia thing a little bit longer :-) I've always been rather perturbed by their habit of allowing drivers to get into the public domain before they're ready.