Windows 8 will not install on Touchsmart 610

[CurrentWeb]

I have seen people everywhere having this problem, but nothing I could find here, so I might as well ask on the official HP support to see if SOMEONE can help.

The Developer Preview worked fine, installed on a second partition and dual booted it. But ever since then, none of the Windows 8 betas will install. It gets stuck at the 'Getting Devices Ready' screen, which screams there is a driver issue. But no one from Microsoft or HP has acknowledged the problem, and they're only advice is 'Redownload Windows 8' and 'Unplug all your usb devices', which is really unhelpful.

I don't know if any HP employees actually read this forum either, but there are a lot of people who paid HP a lot of money for a touch PC that can't run the first touch OS, and it sucks. It worries me that maybe even the Official Windows 8 won't work if the Release Preview won't, since they are extremely similar.

Anyone who can help, PLEASE do.

[ssgmike]

I just installed Windows 8 Release preview evaluation copy build 8400 with no issues other then I am not able to play A.V.A. My system is a TouchSmart 520-1050

[aegean]

Same here.

Touchsmart 600-1150 qd

Tried installing 6 times, including clean downloads and installs, no peripherals attached etc.  After "preparing", "getting devices ready", "getting system ready", "preparing", auto reboot, I just get continual rotating circle on the  "Windows" screen.

I'll force a restart resulting in "Windows installation was not successful. Your previous version is being restored."  

Disappointed.

[CurrentWeb]

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

Well, someone on another forum did, but I can't find their answer so I can't credit them lol

The problem is the Wireless Lan driver, all you need to do is boot into the BIOS, go to Security, Slot Security, and disable any of the 'Mini Card' slots that are enabled. Once they're all disabled, try the installation again, and it works like a charm. This does mean the computer will no longer connect to Wifi networks, but I have a wired connection anyway so no loss

Also, I had to make a new installation disc as the original was corrupted, not sure if that's a coincidence or not, so if the installation still doesn't work try making a new installation media and try again.

I hope HP can release updated drivers and/or Microsoft fixes the current install bug, cause that is a really random, difficult solution for just wanting to install an OS.

[mswindows8surfa]

Can someone help me?

I've been having the same problems, and eventually gave up.  The developer release worked....now this one doesn't install.
I have windows 7 X64, I downloaded the appropriate installer from the MS website for Windows 8 (Release).  Took the ISO image and made my DVD.  Rebooted using the DVD, get all the ways to around 70% and auto reboot to black screen.  I have a HP Touchsmart 600-1000t . My bios version is 5.12, I've updated to the most recent that HP has to offer for my computer.  I thought it was my graphic cards, so I've updated all my drivers.  I've disconnected everything, the only thing connected is my wireless mouse/keyboard, power supply.  I've re-downloaded and tried several clean installs on a different partition with more than 90GB.  No luck.  I eventually tried a USB and disabling all of my ports (with the exception of the one USB port) in BIOS (including LAN and WLAN) as well with no luck.

I'm driving myself crazy, as this should work!  My computer was built for windows 7 and shipped with windows 7.

[waded]

I think any of the folks on this thread who are talking about a TouchSmart 600 (or perhaps even 610, but I think the workaround @CurrentWeb gives is not applicable on a 600) may be running into the issue with the 600-1005xt I described and had a workaround for here: http://www.waded.org/2012/03/02/installing-windows-8-consumer-preview-on-a-hp-touchsmart-600/

The symptom is  Windows 8 Consumer Preview or Release Preview won't boot past the logo screen (which had a fish on it with Consumer Preview, and in Release Preview says "Windows".) 

The workaround is to change the SATA controller mode from ACHI to IDE.

It's not a great workaround, as I believe it causes the DVD drive to disappear (this did not matter to me), but it does seem to allow the Consumer Preview and Release Preview builds to boot.

I'm planning on trying the Windows "RTM" build today. I'll try it with the SATA controller mode set back to ACHI to see if the problem was corrected.

[waded]

(For what it's worth, the "RTM" build also did not boot past the logo screen (which now has the blue windows logo) without changing the SATA controller mode to IDE on my TouchSmart 600-1005xt.)

[PawanBali]

I am having same problem on 1280qd model.. Install crashes at getting devices ready 5-15%. For 64 bit it is 5% and 32 bit It has reached upto 25% one time. I tried on new partition, on VHD in both GPT and MBR primary partition. I tried switching sata controller to IDE from ACHD. It fails but every way. In IDE mode even window 7 fail to boot. Classpnp.sys driver gets into problem.

Who so ever bought these HP touchsmart computers to be forward compatible are the loosers. HP does not care and MS will have not interest in these machines.

[tpmn]

I will receive my 610q tomorrow so I hope this work around works. The main reason I ordered this computer was to be ready for Windows 8. I was not very happy when I found out that Win 8 CP and Win 8 PR did not work on  the Touchsmart 610-1280qd I just ordered. So did some searching and here is what I found:

"OK guys, finally managed to install Windows 8 Release Preview on TouchSmart 620 PC. I think this will also work with TouchSmart 610 PC. Culprit is wireless lan. The driver for wireless lan is causing installation to hung. To complete the installation just disable the wireless lan controller from BIOS. Just go to BIOS and disable "Security->Slot Security->Mini Card Slot 1'. Please do not try to enable lan controller again after setup. If you do so, then when you try to boot again it will hung at start up."

This is from: 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/W8ITProPreRel/thread/fdf565ea-bbe3-444b-b70f-50d4bb...

[waded]

Keep in mind that there's still more than a month until Windows 8 upgrade is available to consumers for purchase. Every issue I've seen has been driver related, and while it's reasonable to expect that computers typically used in enterprise will have had the drivers ready for Windows 8, because preparing system images for deployment takes time, computers typically used by consumers do not have to be ready quite yet. (For example I don't think NVidia has released a final driver for the display adapter on the TouchSmart 600, and this is a part used not only by HP... but they have released a preview driver, indicating they still have work they plan to do.)

Historically when things don't work well at this point it is not a good sign for prior-Windows-version era computers, but it isn't game over.