Windows 10: Windows 7 x86 upgrade hangs on FIRST BOOT with spinning icon

At this point I wouldn't be trying to upgrade but simply replace old with new if not planning any dual or multi-booting. Clean installs always insure working results 99% of the time as compared to upgrades that can come out buggy!

Without a look at the partitioning scheme you have going there presently that is also another factor when trying to make suggestions on how to see working results. The 500gb drive split up into several partitions doesn't tell enough unfortunately. You may want to post a snipping of the view from the Disk Management tool and take it from there.

 

Along with the banter between me and NightHawk, Katanga, did you miss this:

It didn't show up clearly, so I reformatted the text.

 

That's true, but I was really wanting to figure out what is blocking the upgrade from succeeding.

Has anyone solved a problem like this?

 

Here what prevented the upgrade installs last summer was simply the need to unplug the two storage/backup drives which were later found to have seen the "$Windows~..." BT and WS folders created on the first of the two Sata 3 drives while the OS drives were and still are a pair of 1tb Sata II drives. And the boot files, mbr entries were being written to the second of those two. Where was the bios at post to look?

Upon review of the Clean Install guide at the time having first wanting to enter the upgrade blindly as with every other previous version run OOPS! Had to go back and unplug those two drives! The original 7 host/boot drive had already been unplugged since I was already expecting a dual OS system if 10 was going to work out.

With more then one drive there I would say booting live from a Linux distro long enough to look over each drive to see where the temp folders and boot files are ending up would be a first step! You have to be able to see where things are being placed by the 10 installer as well as view the partitioning structure when planning to add any OS onto an existing system. The assessment here would be equal to "Scrambled OSes over Toast"! The boot information as well as just where things are being placed would be the thing to be looking at.

 

Why is it I only have these problems with Win2K-to-XP upgrades? None of the several XP-original installs I upgraded had any issues.

 

And you upgrade from XP to ? A newer version running the MinWin kernel for a start while 2000-XP was still seeing NT 5.0 to the greater extent. The GUI for the most part as well as introducing Fat into the NTFS 2000 base is what later became XP. The two versions there were neck to neck in contrast to the major changes having first been brought in with Vista and later 7. XP was a rush job combo of ME mashed into 2000 in retrospect.

Don't let that fool you however since Vista also saw Fat support removed only to be returned with 7 afterwards once MS saw the trends for digital devices using Fat on SD and other memory cards as well as the format for onboard memory. Now you are seeing Linux support going into Windows since the Chief head at Oracle's Virtualization dept. will now be strictly MS!

Overall however while you may have seen good turnouts with upgrade installs too often they end up coming out buggy either immediately being confronted with some headaches or at some later point when suddenly things start acting up. The clean install on the other hand starts everything off fresh with one of the most important elements to note here being the Fresh System Registry lacking any unwant a be! or clutter carried over from a previous install if not previous version!

With 10 this has been a concern as well while build after build has been going on one over the other with fewer problems since these have all been Developer builds seen with the Windows Insider Program. From now on the newer updated builds seen will be arriving by way of the Windows Updates while the general releases will still be available by way of the Media Creation tool MS provides or at their Tech Bench Program download page.

Presently however putting all of the other aside a look at the Disk Management tool as far as how you have things laid out would be a help here since it will provide a good look at how you have things set up. This is one clear way of finding out just why you are not seeing 10 go on by way of upgrade at this point since something is the reason why the upgrade is hanging on you.

It might simply turn out to be the media being used dvd or flash drive if not mounting an ISO is the reason and needs to be done over again if you have seen a bad burn to disk(Seen that one enough times!) or a bad write to a flash drive when seeing the 10 media made up. But you are going to need to fill in a few gaps here as to how you are going about things.

 

The first failing install is my mom's late husband's XP. It was created in the mid-Nineties with Win 95 OSR2, and upgraded to 98, 2K and then XP. He died in 2007, and his old PC (a Duron Applegate with nForce chipset) was given away, but I kept the hard drive. Out of interest, I migrated the install to a newer PC and a 750gb notebook drive. It has just one partition, and I'll try posting a screen capture of it later today.

With regards to the flash drive, it works fine upgrading the other 32-bit installs, just not these two. And, I get the same results using the Windows Update download, and a DVD burned from the ISO.

 

An old AMD Duron cpu with NForce 215 chipset wouldn't have been seen until 2001 when the chipset first arrived. Comparison of Nvidia nForce chipsets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The AMD Duron cpu line only came out during June 2000. Duron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I doubt that was the board that saw 95 running in the mid 90s! If the system originally saw 95 he likely swapped boards out when XP first arrived as part of the need for hardware as well as the OS upgrade. As for the old drive if original and not one bought afterwards that would be about 20yrs. old and not a good option at this time! He must have used a 40pin to 80pin ide adapter to get around the need for those old ide ribbon cables in order to continue using the drive back then.

WD brought in the EIDE(Enhanced IDE) or ATA-2 back in 1994 about that time while the Ultra IDE would be needed presently for the standard 80pin data cable. If you can post back with the make and other information seen on the drive labeling excluding serial number that can be looked up fast to find out just what drive that is you have there. For some general information on drives that can be looked over at Parallel ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another thing you will want to provide a good break down for the actual hardwares in use is the free SIW(System Info for Windows) tool found at SIW | System Information for Windows by Gabriel Topala That provides a full breakdown of everything including the programs you have as well as the details for cpu, memory, video card even, and the mother board itself for a look at the specs.

Just remember that any hardwares that don't even see Windows 8.1 updates won't be much good for 10! That includes the main board itself where the ide as well as other onboard controllers are located. That would be the main reason for seeing 10 fail besides a problem drive.

 

This install saw many motherboard/CPU combinations over the years, but now runs on an ASRock 1150 with i3 4170 CPU and 750gb notebook drive (one partition).

Apart from the hard drives (which I kept in storage), the old hardware is long gone, and I use Driver View, Autoruns and the Registry Editor to clean out all unused drivers.

 

The 1155 being the socket series but not the model board itself. ASRock > Motherboard Series That will show what support the board itself presently is seeing.

As for simply manually knocking out drivers by way of the registry that won't do much when going from one version of Windows to one newer. Initially for the July 29th release last summer intending on still running 7 on the former host/boot the second OS drive that didn't end up with 8 or 8.1 was left empty for the most part other then an occasional look at some newer release of a Linux distro until seeing a clone of the 7 drive initially thought to be why the upgrade to 10 wouldn't take place. That was followed by a fresh install of 7 which once finding the extra drives present had to be unplugged first then saw the first upgrade which came out buggy! Since the activation servers were bogged down heavy a second upgrade to repair the first took place until the following weekend saw the clean install go on and activate upon arrival at the desktop for the first time.

You will note that despite having seen a split for the 100gb off the 1tb second OS drive for Linux the drive still had remained free of the clutter and like volume information problem you could be seeing there as to why the drive wasn't made bootable from the start. With the mention of using a 2.5" drive not a 3.5" drive the next question of course is that in a 5.25" drive bay adapter installed internally or in an external usb type enclosure?

For a Windows install to work if not simply seeing a clone or image restored from a drive already in working order a custom install to any hard drive in an enclosure will often fail. The Windows installer uses generic controller drivers as well as 10 now automatically downloading and installing updates from the manufacturer or from an MS archive upon detection of the hardwares during the set up. If internal then you may have to have the 10 installer not go for anything until the installation completes since it may be putting on the wrong update or if the drive is external you have to look at the usb factor despite set up files having been unpacked to the drive.

Some have run into problems simply from allowing 10 to download and install updates which is the most likely reason you are seeing 10 hang up on you there. Just remember that unlike previous versions like XP, Vista, 7, even for 8 and 8.1 the 10 installer is it's own animal at this time and tends to work a little bit differently.

Back when first building the main and later 3yrs. later needing a fresh copy of 7 again I could simply leave the pair of 1tb then storage drives left plugged in while seeing the second OS drive's data cable pulled. With 10 however those other drives saw a problem! The 10 installer got confused on where to put things. In your situation however something like the wrong download is where to start looking.

 

The board is less than a year old, and supports all the latest goodies, including SATA 3.0 and USB 3.

I used a combination of Pnputil and manual removal to remove unneeded drivers. Driver View confirmed they were no longer being loaded, so apparently they weren't the problem.

The drive is installed in a Silverstone SDP08 bracket, and connected with an ordinary SATA cable to an onboard SATA port.

I made the setup as simple as possible, connecting the storage device directly to a motherboard SATA port. As for installation media, the same problem occurs whether the install is carried out from a USB flash drive, a DVD, or Windows Update.

I have tried it with updates and without.

My mom's late husband's install is on a single drive with a single partition. It doesn't get simpler than that, which leads me to believe the issue is with a driver.

I'll try removing users and applications, and seeing where that leads. With the other install, the Vista upgrade failed at 56% until I uninstalled a particular application the upgrader thought was compatible. Maybe there is some similar preventing the Win 10 upgrade from booting?

 

From the information there the idea of an upgrade rather then seeing a full fresh clean install may be the problem you are running into. Besides the clutter factor in the registry which comes over time and any particular driver which is less likely as 10 will download fresh drivers as part of an upgrade install the volume on the drive may be seeing errors.

You may want to consider seeing a full system image backup made of the drive before hand of what it sees presently in preparation for a full wipe. That would involve seeing a brand new single primary created to start 10 off 100% fresh. You would then let 10 go on without all the drivers at first to get the basic Windows install running before download and install of the latest updates from the support sites for board and expansion cards.

That will entail installing all programs from scratch onto the newer version that sees a fresh install. This will automatically eliminate the 3rd party or driver incompatibility type issues entirely. In order to preserve the programs you have on considering a dual boot by adding a second drive might be a working solution for you as the present drive would remain untouched while 10 goes onto the next drive instead. Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums

Despite being plugged directly into the board while being external is the internal drive(s) still plugged in at all other then optical or a card reader? Already sounds like you are trying to work with a second drive externally but should remember what I was saying before about the problems of having multiple especially any non OS drives plugged in when trying to get 10 to go on. The 10 installer might even be getting confused by the enclosure not drive being what it detects instead. Enclosures will appear as separate devices.

 

There is no second or external drive. It's a very stripped-down build, with a single SATA storage device plugged into a motherboard port, and Intel 4400 integrated graphics. (I had tried a 6450 video card, with the same results.) The only USB devices are the keyboard/mouse dongle and the flash drive or external DVD drive. (I tried the upgrade without these, using the download option.)

This setup is fine with a fresh install, but for some reason the upgrade hangs. I'll try eliminating some applications.

 

If the flash drive isn't the 10 media being used for the upgrade that would be an item to see unplugged as that can also appear as a logical drive to the 10 installer. The dvd drive with or without any media of any type present is simply ignored by the Windows installer unless being the media in use there. I have to suspect the flash drive as the likely culprit however unless the main drive has a problem?

What will happen during the upgrade attempts made so far while the flash drive not in use but still present is where to look to see if any temp files were placed there that should have been placed on C! That is what will stall an upgrade install as well as any clean install when the 10 installer gets confused as to where to unpack things.

 

Ahh, but I just discovered a key difference between the successful XP-to-10 upgrades and the failing ones: the former have 4K cluster sizes while the latter's are 0.25K, and that's because the partitions were originally created for Windows 95.

I am going to restore a backup again, change the cluster size of the failing partition to 4096 and try the upgrade again.