ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed (on black screen)

[mdklassen]

> Now the bad part.  "Windows is updating Software" which included Windows reboots at least 3 times.

> Eventually I realised that this would continue indefinitely, so I turned off the Computer and restarted.

Such is life with an Operating System that was released many many years ago.

These are "computer-years", not "people-years".

You installed Windows, as it was "frozen" for distribution in 2011, or maybe slightly later.

Since then, Microsoft has been updating Windows 7 every month, for over 8 years.

The total number of released updates is very large -- around 200, if I remember correctly.

So, a few reboots also have become necessary.

I think that if you had left it alone, it definitely would have completed.

How long?

That depends on the speed of your Internet connection, the speed of your processor, and the speed of your disk-drive.

Probably, 12 to 24 hours -- more if your computer's "power" settings are set to put it to "sleep" after a few hours, and you need to "wake" it to continue the updating.

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[Mogadishu]

This suggestion is a dud. I tried this in 2009 with the introduction of Windows 7.

Earthlink quickly states that their 32 bit program is incompatible with the new 64 bit program and forces you to dump out. Based on your post I tried again with the same result.

I have been continuingly using Earthlink Total Access through Virtual Windows XP.

The only issue that I have, which you can certainly solve is that the Memory allocated is about 10% of the total, which makes for an excruciatingly SLOW process at times. I know that there is away to increase this, maybe to 50% and you must know how this can be done. Obviously this will decrease the W7 performance somewhat, but not that I would care.

Mogadishu.

[mdklassen]

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@Mogadishu wrote:

The only issue that I have, which you can certainly solve is that the Memory allocated is about 10% of the total, which makes for an excruciatingly SLOW process at times.

I know that there is

away to increase this, maybe to 50% and you must know how this can be done.

Obviously this will decrease the W7 performance somewhat, but not that I would care.

---

No, I do not know how to do this.

But, I know how to search, e.g. https://www.google.ca/search?q=expand+ram+%22Virtual+Windows+XP%22

which seems to have a good response to a very-similar question.

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[mdklassen]

> This suggestion is a dud.

> I tried this in 2009 with the introduction of Windows 7.

> Earthlink quickly states that their 32 bit program is incompatible with the new 64 bit program

> and forces you to dump out.

> Based on your post, I tried again with the same result.

If you want technical assistance for your issue on this forum, please give technical details on which "compatibility" options you chose, or whether you allowed Windows to pick the best options, and then what happened when you tried to run the program.

[Mogadishu]

Even though I gave you a justified DUD rating on your previous post, regarding Eartlink Total Access, you were spot on with spotting that I had almost certainly not completed the W7 installation successfully, based on my statement in the Forum post.  Even though the installation appeared to be working perfectly, it was in fact just not so.

Clearly I had a problem booting from the DVD drive. F12 was set up correctly to boot from DVD but it did not happen and defaulted to the the Hard Drive.

I was able with ESC, F9 to boot CD media, but that ended up being a rescue operation.

When I visited Device Manager and found a Controller and adjacent entry with a yellow alert and could not download a driver, based on your post I realised that the install did not complete. This being consistent with my desciption in my earlier post which you also recognized.

So what do I do?

With my DBAN program I WIPED the hard drive and started over.

I first tried Windows XP which failed.

BTW Bootable CD's were now working on Restart, confirming that the BIOS menu had been previously corrupted.

After XP failed I switched to Windows 7 Recovery, which installed seamlessly, including updates from the Roll-up file as per "The Old Man"

I tied XP once again and was rebuffed.

I have concluded that the 2015 Computer is not compatible with XP, whereas my 2009 Computer is.

I fully expect my 2009 to accept an installation from the XP installation disk.

Even though "Dean" has been helpful at the end, I want to give "The Old Man" 99% of the credit for his efforts in trying to solve my problem over the last 6 months and also educating me in the parameters of Geekdom.

Mogadishu.

P.S. Just a shame that he appears to have been "muzzled"

[mdklassen]

> I want to give "The Old Man" 99% of the credit.

Go ahead, and give him 100% -- there is no monetary value given to any contributor for any "credit" that you give. 🙂

> I have concluded that the 2015 Computer is not compatible with XP, whereas my 2009 Computer is.

Yes, many manufacturers did not create device-drivers for Windows XP for computers manufactured recently.

Windows XP was released in 2001, and reached its "sunset" in 2014.

Windows Vista was released in 2007, and reached its "sunset" in April 2017.

Windows 7 was released in 2009 (?), and will reach its "sunset" in January 2020.

Windows 8 was released in 2013, and will reach its "sunset" in 2023.

So, your '2015' computer should have device-drivers for Windows 7 & 8 & 10,

while your '2009' computer should have device-drivers for XP & Vista & 7.