Cannot install Windows 7 Pro; gets stuck on "Starting Windows" screen

Question

I have read dozens of posts on this topic but none has helped yet.
My system has Windows 8 with UEFI. I want to install Windows 7 Pro on another partition. I have turned off Secure Boot in the UEFI/BIOS. When I try to install Windows 7 Pro from a DVD it shows "windows is loading files" and then gets stuck on "Starting Windows"
for ever. This happens even when no USB peripherals are attached.
I have already wasted many days on this. I hope someone can help.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi friends of the internet
I have been reading several forums regarding the issue of installing windows 7 (64 bit) to a computer that have had windows 8 installed previously or just a GPT formatted disk.
My Case:
Windows version installed: Windows 7 Professional N with Service Pack 1 (x64) or Windows 7 Professional (x64)
Computer used: Samsung laptop
Model Code: NP53U4C-A02SE
See the specks here:
http://www.samsung.com/dk/consumer/computer-peripherals/notebook/notebook/NP535U4C-A02SE-spec
Create a USB install disk that not freezes at ”starting windows” screen:
First I followed this great guide (Thanks Daniel):
http://
hodgin.ca/2012/10/02/creating-a-uefibios-windows-7-usb-and-installing-to-gpt-partitions/
STOP AFTER STEP 13!
1. Open a command line in administrator mode
2. run DISKPART
3. type LIST DISK
4. Look for the disk number that represents your USB drive
5. type SELECT DISK # where # represents the number of your USB drive. Get this right or you will wipe a different drive out.
6. type CLEAN
7. type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
8. type SELECT PARTITION 1
9. type ACTIVE
10. type FORMAT fs=fat32 quick
11. type assign
12. The drive should now be formatted and marked as active and fat32. Do not format the drive as NTFS or you will only be able to boot into the installer in BIOS mode.
13. Now you will need to copy the contents of the windows 7 install dvd to the USB with a regular copy paste from windows explorer.
Here comes a very weird hack... I do not know why it works, but I think it is all about flash drive data structure. I did these steps on a win 7 prof. computer.
(Let’s assume it’s drive E:)
Make a copy of your e:\efi\microsoft folder to e.g. your desktop.
Delete the e:\efi folder
Copy the \efi folder from a windows 8 installation disk (I used Windows 8 (x64) Professional) to the e:\efi folder. Sorry I cannot provide this for you.
Here comes the weird part. Then delete e:\efi\microsoft you just copied from the win 8 installation disk.
Copy the \microsoft folder form the desktop to e:\efi\microsoft
Resume the guide from step 18.:
http://
hodgin.ca/2012/10/02/creating-a-uefibios-windows-7-usb-and-installing-to-gpt-partitions/
18. Insert the USB in the machine and turn it on and boot into the UEFI/BIOS loader and check for boot options. On the ASUS Zenbook it detected two boot options on the USB drive. One was UEFI and one was regular BIOS. I made the
UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.
My bios setup was:
Secure Boot = Disable
OS Mode Selection = CSM and UEFI OS
Boot Device Priority = I made the UEFI option the first choice and restarted the machine.
The installation should start normal.
E.g. See this guide:
www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/186875-uefi-unified-extensible-firmware-interface-install-windows-7-a.html
What I did was:
Select custom installation (Advanced).
Click Drive options (Advanced).
Delete all partitions (this might not be needed). When I did not delete all partitions I was asked every time after the install, during start up by the windows boot manager to select ether win 8 or win 7.
Click new (DO NOT make Changes in the size of the disk), apply, see NOTE!
Edit the Primary partition as you want it e.g. divide it to more partitions.
Select the one you will install windows on and do a normal install.
I do not make changes in the Bios after install. The Boot priority is automatic set to “Windows boot manager”. If I change the boot mode back to OS Mode Selection = UEFI OS, the computer will freeze at the “starting windows” screen again.
All this worked for me, good luck. There might be more to it, but this is a start.
By the way, the start up time for a MBT install was 37 s. And for the GPT it was 49 s.
Remember if we stand on each other’s shoulders we will reach higher
J.
NOTE: Here the installation program should create three partitions automatically!
Partition 1 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
Partition 2 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
Partition 3 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.
If this isn’t the cast you are not installing in UEIF mode. To check for this (thanks again Daniel):
If you need to find out if you have booted into BIOS mode or UEFI mode when the installer starts you can press SHIFT+F10 when the welcome installer shows up to open a cmd prompt. from here you will likely be at X:\Sources. Type cd .. to
go back a dir and move into \Windows\Panther\
Then type notepad setupact.log
Within this file do a ctrl+f and search for
    Callback_BootEnvironmentDetect: Detected boot environment:
It should either say BIOS or UEFI.
To check if your disk is in the GPT format.
Open the command prompt.
Type: DISKPART
Type: List Disk
See for the star (*) in the GPT column