goldfries' Experience

goldfries also faced problems installing Windows 7. He hadn't been able to install it even after trying for more than 12 hours!

In the afternoon, it showed the "Windows Loading" screen and then it left him at a blank screen with a cursor blinking. That's it. After leaving it running for some time, it still stayed the same - blank screen. Another black screen of death...

He thought it could be a USB problem so he unplugged his Gigabyte Odin GT USB cable and voila! Windows 7 started installing... and stopped at 23%!

He reset the PC and tried installing again. This time, the DVD loaded but stopped at the Windows 7 animation screen. Frustrated, he loaded his Windows Vista DVD and deleted all the partitions in his hard disk drive (which Windows 7 could not do!) and tried installing it on a single partition.

That finally allowed him to properly install Windows 7. Yes, it appears that Windows 7 hated his earlier hard disk partitioning of 50 GB and 200 GB. Repartitioning the hard disk drive into a single 250 GB partition was what he needed to do to properly install Windows 7. Talk about weird requirements!

Unfortunately, his sad saga isn't quite over. After some failed overclocking attempts and a change from the NVIDIA graphics card to an ATI graphics card, Windows 7 suddenly refused to boot. So now he's back to good old Windows Vista!

What's Going On?

We aren't exactly sure what was the cause of their woes. Many other users have successfully installed Windows 7 without a hitch. But we noticed that they tend to be users of notebooks or older hardware.

Jason, for example, intentionally tried an upgrade of a Windows 7 beta installation on a netbook to Windows 7 RTM. As we all know, upgrading an operating system is far more complex and far more liable to failure than a clean installation. It ended up taking over 2 hours to complete, but the upgrade process was problem-free.

I had no problem installing Windows 7 Starter Edition on an Acer Aspire One netbook either. It was a breeze! Of course, both netbooks were using the built-in Intel GMA950 GPU. If we have to hazard a guess, a component of the ATI graphics driver that came with Windows 7 may be the culprit. To be more specific, the ATIKMDAG.SYS file, which is part of ATI's Catalyst Control Panel software, but not the actual graphics driver itself.

If you are using a notebook or PC that does not have an ATI graphics card or GPU, then you are unlikely to be affected by the black screen of death. But what if you get stuck in this Windows 7 installation limbo? There are a few solutions. Let's take a look...

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