I have an Asus EEE 901 netbook that I am upgrading to Windows 7. Well, actually, I had Windows 7 on it yesterday, but some malware corrupted my shell32.dll, so I thought I should reinstall the OS. The installation crashed, corrupting the entire thing and leaving me with no working operating system. Great.

I had to install a fresh copy of Windows XP Home after deleting and formatting the disk partition. I then went to install the upgrade to Windows 7 (which I have legally through a download from Digital River). I did this by downloading the 32-bit ISO and using the Microsoft USB tool to create a bootable USB stick. The install failed during the copy stage with the following message:

Quote :

"Windows cannot copy files required for installation. The files may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070241"

This occurred about halfway through the unpacking stage.

Thinking I may have had a bad ISO from Digital River, I used their setup box files instead. These also failed with the same message, at a different point along the unpacking stage.

I've also tried extracting the ISO to an external hard drive and running the setup.exe. The same thing happens.

I've also tried mounting the ISO using VirtualCloneDrive, but I receive the following message:

Quote :

"Setup.exe - Bad Image The application or DLL G:\Source\autorun.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette."

I'm at a loss here. The only other option I can think of is installing using a USB DVD drive and an actual Windows 7 Professional DVD, but I don't have either of those.

This is just bizarrely frustrating, because I have done this installation before with no problem. I originally had XP on this netbook, and I was able to install it to Windows 7 when it came out with no problem. I have no idea what is different here.

If you can get Windows 7 Professional on this netbook using my valid CD key, or you provide the help on here which allows me to install it, I will paypal or physically hand you $20.

7/26/2010 8:38:59 AM

Are you using UNetbootin to create a bootable Windows 7 USB drive?

7/26/2010 8:54:46 AM

^No, I'm using the Microsoft USB/DVD tool.

The problem with trying to install via a boot USB stick is that if the installation fails I have to reinstall Windows XP as well, which takes forever.

Optimally I'd like to get a hold of a valid, working DVD and a portable USB DVD drive.

7/26/2010 8:56:22 AM

If possible MD5 your ISO file - or just redownload it. Getting a bad image is not unheard of.

Side note: the eee901 seems a little underpowered for Win7 - doesn't that have the 900mhz celeron in it?

7/26/2010 8:56:43 AM

Wait, why would you have to reinstall XP? I installed a Digital River Windows 7 ISO from a USB drive onto my netbook using UNetbootin without any problem. Didn't have to boot into Windows. The netbook boots from the USB drive, and installation proceeds.

7/26/2010 9:00:12 AM

^^ That's possible. I've redownloaded it like 5 times from different computers. I've even gotten an ISO off PirateBay and had the same thing happen.

It runs fine with Windows 7. It has a 1.6ghz Atom.

^I suppose it can't hurt to try Unetbootin. I'll try that when I get home today, thanks. I had to reinstall XP because if the USB boot fails, I'm left with no working OS on the computer.


[Edited on July 26, 2010 at 9:05 AM. Reason : ]

7/26/2010 9:04:26 AM

^(from Frosh) It used to be upgrade CD's would install onto a blank drive if you had the previous version CD-Key. Can your netbook boot from USB stick?

And yea, Atom should be fine

[Edited on July 26, 2010 at 9:30 AM. Reason : V memtest86+ http://www.memtest86.com/]

7/26/2010 9:13:59 AM

Use Hiren's Boot CD or other choice utility to test your RAM. I spent hours on a similar error with USB drives, DVD-RWs, HDD installs only to find out 2 sticks of memory had gone bad.

7/26/2010 9:14:56 AM

I usually rule out bad ISOs by booting to a live CD software. Mine of choice is backtrack at the moment.

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/tutorials/usb-live-install/

If it crashes during that bootup then it's hardware related. Start replacing parts.

7/26/2010 10:33:29 AM

I had an install problem a while back where it would crash out at random times during the install. Turned out to be a bad memory stick. Just waited to crash until it decided to write into the bad registers or whatever and spit out a shit file.

7/26/2010 3:40:43 PM

Lafta 2.0

7/26/2010 3:42:39 PM

i have legit retail dvd's if you have an external drive you want to try with

7/26/2010 3:52:55 PM

btw you shouldn't need xp installed to do an upgrade. leave the cd key blank when installing, choose advanced install, blank out all partitions on the disk, and then pick the disk and hit next. It will partition and install. If it asks you what version to install, pick the version you have they key for. Then once you get into windows, it will ask you to put in the cd key as part of activation.

7/26/2010 4:08:20 PM

I have a legit upgrade dvd capable of making fresh installs, if you're in charlotte and can get ahold of an external dvd drive i can let you borrow it.

7/26/2010 4:09:27 PM

Quote :

"[Edited on July 26, 2010 at 9:30 AM. Reason : V memtest86+ http://www.memtest86.com/]"

Just ran this. 1 pass with no errors.

Quote :

"i have legit retail dvd's if you have an external drive you want to try with"

I wish I had one.

I'm going to try UNetBootin now and see if that works. If it doesn't, maybe I have a bad ISO.

7/26/2010 4:38:28 PM

I can't find the MD5 for the Digital River ISO. If anyone has any idea where I could find it...

EDIT: Going to try this: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090706/windows-7-iso-verifier/

SECOND EDIT: That program verified both ISOs I have as "valid Windows 7 Professional 32-bit ISOs."

[Edited on July 26, 2010 at 4:45 PM. Reason : ]

7/26/2010 4:41:09 PM

For some reason it's not booting off the USB.

I have TWO devices configured to boot: A Sandisk USB stick and I have my old 16GB SSD hooked up via mini USB. Both were configured with UNetBootin.

In the BIOS, the boot order is as follows:

1. Removeable Dev.
2. ATAPI CDROM (External one I have connected)
3. 32GB SSD (my hard drive)

Those are my only three choices, however if I insert an SD card, it does show up as a "choice" in the boot options. Maybe the BIOS isn't detecting the USB drives as I thought? (I can't boot off the SD card, though, because it's only 1GB and I need 4GB for the Windows 7 boot disk).

I can also see both USB drives detected during POST, but it's not booting off of them.

What's next?

7/26/2010 5:32:18 PM

I figured it out. The USB sticks weren't listed under removeable boot devices. They were listed under hard drive choices in the menu below. I had to move the USB drive to the top of the list, so the three boot options listed above^ then became:

1. Removeable Dev.
2. ATAPI CDROM
3. USB SANDISK CRUZ

So, I booted in to the Windows 7 setup successfully. If it installs without a problem, it looks like FroshKiller will win the prize.

7/26/2010 5:41:14 PM

"a required cd/dvd drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, cd, dvd, or usb flash drive, please insert it now."

7/26/2010 8:00:27 PM

I managed to get it installed using the Microsoft USB/CD tool and the image.

HOWEVER, now it is telling me my CD key is invalid. W T F.

7/26/2010 9:47:52 PM

You have a USB stick with bad blocks. This is a telltale sign of a shitty quality USB stick with a memory module that shouldn't have passed QA.

^Call the customer service center to do a manual activation, it'll take like 5 minutes

7/26/2010 10:01:46 PM

^I think the UNetbootin install was fucked. It kept messing up at that CD check.

I redid it using the Microsoft DVD/Install tool and it worked. I got to the activation screen and called tech suppt. They did a manaul activation over the phone. (I did that before reading your post, so don't get greedy).

All in all, Froshkiller was the closest to winning, but his suggestion didn't really solve the problem.

Everyone loses.

7/26/2010 10:58:27 PM

lol

donate $5 to my nonproft then http://wedesiremedia.com

7/26/2010 11:18:50 PM

I have to horizontal scroll on that site on a 1024x600 resolution .

7/26/2010 11:41:01 PM

^built for 1280x1024

how do you even browse the net on 1024x768? netbooks almost have that resolution

7/26/2010 11:54:55 PM

It works for 99% of sites...

7/27/2010 8:24:19 AM

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

Sorry for your loss - I just follow the trends

7/27/2010 1:49:08 PM

^^^The most common resolution is still 1024x768 (although larger displays collectively have more market share): http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

IMO the Web should still work (at least by suitably squishing in) for the old 800x600 and 640x480 displays; fluid layouts ftw

[Edited on July 27, 2010 at 2:14 PM. Reason : ^this time the lowest common denominator isn't that hard

7/27/2010 2:14:07 PM

^^ haha, well

if you know about design, my friend, you should know that it's possible to make a site that looks beautiful in any resolution.

amazon.com works fine on my netbook, and they service billions a day

7/27/2010 2:28:07 PM

The problem is Windows.

You meant to install Ubuntu Netbook.

$20?

7/27/2010 2:34:20 PM

Haha, I've tried that. The problem is that I view stuff on Netflix instant watch too much. Windows 7 runs and looks great on a netbook.

7/27/2010 2:53:55 PM