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Windows 7 student upgrade - having problems

C

Cintirich

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 9, 2006
Messages
244
Hi folks,

I have kind of a fragmented question. I'll try to make it as clear as possible but I'll be happy to expand in you need more info. Sorry it's kind of long but I wanted to include as much detail as I thought you might need.

Okay, I recently took advantage of the Win7 offer for students via Digital River. Here's the pertinant info and then my issues/questions:

I am currently running Windows XP (32 bit) Home. The offer I selected was for the Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) Upgrade. I think I may have erred there, because I want to do a clean install, not an upgrade install.

When I ordered, Digital River indicated that if I was upgrading from XP 32 to Win7 64, I would need to purchase an additional DvD for $13, which I went ahead and did (although it's been almost 2 weeks and hasn't arrived). DR emailed me saying the disk was shipped to me on Nov 12th - the address was correct.

In the meantime, Microsoft acknowledged that an .ISO file was needed and was available via customer support. I contacted support and they sent me the link to download the .iso file which I did yesterday.

I then unzipped the .iso and associated files to a 4 Gig flash drive (formatted as NTFS), using drag and drop. I think this should be okay since when I look at my flash drive in "my computer" it looks like a little microsoft icon (like when you have a MS DVD in your drive) instead of just a generic Drive icon.

Finally, after backing up everything to my second HDD, I rebooted and went to my BIOS and set the #1 boot priority as USB - FDD, which I believe is for flash drive - nothing else looked right. Then F10 to save.

When I rebooted, expecting it to boot from my flash drive, it didn't. So I rebooted again and hit F12 for Boot Menu. All the standard devices were listed and there was a "+" sign next to HDD. The only options were arrow keys (to move the highlight bar) and enter (to select). I highlighted FDD and hit enter. My PC rebooted again, but from the HDD. When I went back into the F12 boot menu, the + was still next to the HDD and nothing I do changes that.

So, my general question is, after reading this, can you point out something wrong that I'm doing? My assumptions are that since I have the .iso file and intend to do a clean install, I don't need to wait for the DVD from DR since it seems that is intended for an upgrade install from 32XP to 64Win7.

My signature is up to date as far as my hardware goes, in case that helps. I am pretty decent with hardware but I'll be the first to admit that I am not good when it comes to software, manipulating file types, etc...

Any help would be tremendously appreciated. Thanks!
 
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I'm not positive, but I think the USB - FDD is for external floppy drives. In my BIOS I have to choose USB Hard Drive. I've never booted from my external USB drives or flash drives, but I know they only show up in my boot list when I pick USB Hard Drive.
 
Seems you need to make your USB drive "bootable" just copying windows files to it doesnt make it bootable.
Do a search with google or whatever on how to make win 7 bootable from a usb drive...there's some microsft software thats involved tname slips my mind right now...good luck
 
daemonmf said:
I'm not positive, but I think the USB - FDD is for external floppy drives. In my BIOS I have to choose USB Hard Drive. I've never booted from my external USB drives or flash drives, but I know they only show up in my boot list when I pick USB Hard Drive.
Click to expand...
That makes sense and you're probably right. I'm at work now but I'll try changing it to USB - HDD when I get home. I'll post back w/results this evening.

RipperMac, I'll follow your suggestion as well if it still wont boot.

Thanks!
Rich
 
hardBBQ said:
You won't be able to install Windows directly from the ISO file. You'll need to either burn the ISO to DVD, or extract it to the flash drive such that it will be bootable.
Click to expand...
When I downloaded the file, I did extract it directly to the flash drive. Sorry if I was unclear above. The directions from MS didn't say to do anything special to make it bootable. I don't have them in front of me, but they more or less said, "Download the .iso file and copy it to a DVD or Flash Drive." However, if it's not bootable, which it sounds like that may be the case, then I will look online to see how to make the flash drive bootable. Either that or I'll just buy a small pack of DVDs, burn one for Win7 and use the rest for backup, which I really should be doing anyways, since all my backups are on my 2nd HDD.

In a related question, is there a specific type of DVD format I should use or do only CDs use the +R, -R, etc...? Sad to say I've never burned to a DVD before and I'm pretty ignorant on the subject. A suggestion on any free program to use would also be welcomed.

Thanks again!
 
Your post was perfectly clear. I tried to delete my reply a minute after posting because I skimmed your post too fast and misunderstood. :) The link provided in the edited post should resolve the issue of making a bootable flash drive.
 
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