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Win7 to Win10 setup loop

981 views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  spunk.funk 
#1 ·
Hardware: Alienware x51 PC

Updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10, never reverted back and never made a backup unfortunately. The PC came with Windows 7 pre-installed but I imagine after the Windows 10 took over it probably erased Windows 7 files.

Windows 10 was incredibly buggy and wouldn't let me do certain simple tasks, so I decided to clean the drive and restart the PC (after many different approaches, couldn't do updates or even see update manager etc.) so it was my last resort. :hide:

Now I am trying to go through the Windows 10 setup but every time it gets to restarting or "wait a moment", the process just loops and repeats itself. :banghead:

It has been stuck on this loop for a long time and I've tried many different approaches.

I have tried;

-Unplugging Ethernet/Not connecting to WiFi and continuing the installation
-Booting from a USB that I had made into a Windows 7 boot disk
-Setting boot priorities differently
-Going through the setup around 100 times in a row
-Changing the settings after language settings to turn off any extra features
-Removing all devices and starting the PC up
-Restarting like mad

I can't think of anything else! Ideally I would want to get through the Windows 10 setup and just install from the USB afterwards, but I can't even get onto the desktop to do this. :sad:

I also can't access safe mode or see the Alienware boot screen with the F2 and F9 for boot options. I'm running out of ideas now. All I can think of is that the hard drive possibly has something wrong with it. The PC is a good few years old now and couldn't handle Windows 10 and I'm afraid that it might have rendered the PC useless.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. :angel:
 
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#2 ·
Hi and Welcome to TSF!

Did you ever successfully restore the machine to Windows 7?

If you selected to clean the drive, did you do this through Windows 10? This would have left the Windows 10 OS files on the drive, granted that it completed successfully.

Have you tried to create a bootable Windows 10 USB and boot to it?

Can you not connect to the Alienware BIOS at all? Do you see a splash screen of the logo?
 
#3 ·
Hello!

No I didn't unfortunately, Windows 10 wasn't letting me onto the start menu...or most things really haha.

I did clean the drive through Windows 10.

I haven't tried that but I definitely will. Once I manage to see the splash screen, it was showing earlier but it was on a PC monitor and not a TV monitor. Which is weird because my other PC shows up on the TV with the bios options.
 
#5 ·
Hi all


.... seems like you might want to use the monitor (rather than the TV) .... see if the splash screen & BIOS/UEFI options show then.

[TV connections can be rather slow, and the timing for pressing F2 to enter the Setup screens is fairly brief ... on the x51 boxes, you have to wait for the F2 prompt, and then hit F2. If you press F2 too early (before the F2 prompt appears) then the option will not show. If you press F2 too late, you miss the chance & Windows tries to load. A TV might not "wake" fast enough to show you the necessary screen.]

Just out of curiosity: did you run any procedures when you booted your x51 with the Windows 7 USB? If so, you might have complicated things a bit. You can't actually repair Windows 10 using a Windows 7 installation/repair USB. Let us know if you did happen to try any procedures when booted from the Windows 7 USB.

If you happen to want to return to Windows 7, you could boot the computer to a bootable CD/DVD & see if the Alienware factory recovery partition is still on the hard drive. If it is, you might still have the option to backup all your current data & then use the built-in factory-recovery tools. On the original x51 boxes, I believe you press CTRL and F11 simultaneously at system power-on (when the Dell logo appears). You'd proceed to let the Dell recovery tools write the original Windows 7 system image onto your hard drive (copying it from the factory recovery partition).

Seems like you might want to run some diagnostics when you have time for that, too.

If you reinstall Windows 10 from USB/DVD -- you might save time by making a new USB/DVD with a fresh download directly from Microsoft: it will have many of the latest updates already in place.
 
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