thx - it is about halfway downloaded

do I unzip it to the HDD on my working computer (Win XP) first ?l

Yes, unzip to a directory....

got it - am downloading the ImgBurn pgm now - Roxio did not work

it's burning now

BTW - I found a patch subdir on my HDD and it seemed like I needed to patch your ISO image to use English?

No... Just need to burn the ISO. Patch stuff can be ignored.

IMgBrn is having problems on the verify

guess I'll continue on Wed.

thx again

Go crazy and turn the verify off.

it found 2000 errors in sector so & so

I'll boot off of that CD tomorrow...

Hmm. Never seen that before. The image is good. If it works, boot to the CD, it will give an option to boot the utilities (I'm leaving the name out purposely) or boot to the HD. Boot the utilities. Option 1 should be partition tools. There are a number of HD partitioning tools there. I booted a slightly later version, but I think they are the same. First choice should work....

I can PM my number and you can call tomorrow if you'd like..

Dave

sure - let me know the best time to call you also

I am booting that 1st selection off the menu tree you outlined right now - but it seems to be taking a long time to load a driver...

Something's not right. It should not take very long. I'd almost suggest booting the cd in a working pc, go through the same initial steps and see if it loads faster. Just don't do anything once it's loaded on the good pc or you may have other problems. :D

Is the SATA interface setup as SATA or ATI in the BIOS for the DVD drive? If you're not going to run any ATI equipment, set the BIOS setting to SATA only.

ok, I'll set SATA Combined Mode to Disabled instead of the default. I can't see how that will make a difference...

still waiting to see if it can install -- it says "Setup is starting"

is it even normal for the thing to take 1+ hours to install Windows? or has it been 2 hours...

I got nowhere with WD tech support for the HDD. BTW, their Email support cannot communicate with their telephone support!

- gave up at 8:30; may try to burn another of the magic ISO discs tomorrosw

Not for a fast system

WD told me to re-seat the RAM modules - seems odd since they passed several memory tests, but I'll do that when I get home (at downtown office now) and then try again.

I'll give it more than the 4 hours last night, James...

I'll also try another, slower speed burn to make the Magic ISO CD.

After those attempts, I guess my question would be whether I should return the drive to WD under warranty or to newegg for an exchange.

I reloaded Win 7 on a fresh disk on this machine in about 30 minutes. It certainly sounds like the disc is hosed.

You might want to consider getting a cheap harddisk for data and a 64GB SSD drive for startup. I'm doing this right now and it works great.

yes, that thought occurred to me...

ok, got it booted and used the 1st tool - it says it fixes the error in the partition it found., then it went to a screen with menus that says in yellow box "Partition table error #105 found"

the only menu choice that looks like it will do anything is an operation to format the partition; type is set to NTFS & "selected partition is identified as (BAD) - you cannot change that last item.

there is also a big red X that will delete the partiton - I figure what the hell, why not...

when you try to Apply those operations, it can't do it...

Advanced has an option (only one not grayed out I think) to set that partition to Active. it seemed to do that but put up an info box that says Setting partition active: (BADMBR, primary volume, etc."

MBR makes me think it stands for Master Boot Record, so... that doesn't sound good; nor does the continual attempt by this program to use the term BAD.

it wants to reboot, so...