4th install of Win 8.1 with major issues and fixes fail.

Looking at a 5th fresh install of win 8 and upgrading to 8.1 since Oct 2012. Never had sooo many since Win 95 beta days. 3rd one for 8.1.

Help line been call 3 times and spent 2 hours to get number activate with the last one being on Oct 30-13. Any number that came with the box as well given by help are corrupted.

The current system is bare strip with only 5 programs running with the following issues. The system had 30 programs before this rebuilt.

Green bar in window explorer and fixes fail to deal with it. Just keep scrolling. Sometimes items sent to trash don't show up and done the fix with no results.

Click on folders or drives and the icons in the folder or drive don't show for up to 5 minutes with the blue circle for the mouse spinning. Screen freezes with window explorer to the point I have to get task manger to kill what every not responding. In some cases task manager doesn't shows anything in use. Have to restart the system to deal with the freezes. No issues with drives and have been software tested by manufacture.

Click on properties and takes donkey ages to appear. Is also applies to loading a program to the point it never shows up.

One of the external drive is not being seen as USB fix not working now and was working before this latest issue. USB 3 drive.

HTML pages show up as text when there are other HTML links that show up correct as icon.

Photos and video icon fail to display even after doing the fix or takes forever to display compare to the past as a quick view when opening a folder.

The search is a failure as it not pulling up the files at all to the point it pull up non related files as requested.

When restarting the system with all close programs, it can take up to 5 minutes to shut down.

Put in a 2T & 3T drive in docking bay one at a time after reformatting them and the system not seeing them

The OS on a 3T has 800mg of unallocated space and can't added it to the C drive since I want the full 3T drive as OS drive. I have a 4T and a 3T internal drive that are disconnected since the system refused to boot with them connected now.

Can't do a fix with the OS disk as it come saying drive is lock since I need to log in first. I don't want the log in first issues in the first place and system demands it to load the system.

I have a game that falls apart now in 8.1 yet work in 8 as well 7.

The system is an I7 920 with 26gigs of 1600 ram and a GT 650ti video.

Green bar in window explorer and fixes fail to deal with it. Just keep scrolling. Sometimes items sent to trash don't show up and done the fix with no results.

Click to expand...

Taking one thing at a time:

Disable Windows Search Service
(this will only disable the indexing but you will still be able to search in explorer).



OR

Disable or rebuild the Search Index via Control Panel> Indexing Options> Advanced Button> Rebuild Button.



If either one of the above works, let me know and I'll have a crack at another one of your many issues.
Good luck.

Try it and didn't help nor show up.

Spent time on help desk and they had issues trying to resolve my issues.

In some cases it took them 4 tries or a combination of a few thing to get one thing to work. Try to follow them, but wasn't quick enough to make notes for future use if needed.

At this point the only issues remaining is to remove log in, can't move unallocated space on OS drive into the OS section let alone partition it, 2T of a 4T is showing up on the HD in the docking bay that is empty.

I would also like to break the problem into smaller parts. For instance, a large hard drive, greater than 2.2 TB needs to be configured as GPT, or some special utility is needed to see all of it. You can set any drive as GPT as long as you are not using it for a boot drive in a Legacy (MBR) system.

Now for Windows, does Windows 8 install and run normally? Did you have any problems with any drivers when installing Windows 8?

When you do the Windows 8.1 upgrade, how are you doing it? If you were using an .iso, you would need the license for the 8.1 .iso to install, then use the 8.0 license to activate.

There is a rumor Microsoft will release the official 8.1 .iso this month, if you want to hold off and see. If you have the .iso, you can start with the previous install and end up with a clean install of 8.1.

Saltgrass said:

I would also like to break the problem into smaller parts. For instance, a large hard drive, greater than 2.2 TB needs to be configured as GPT, or some special utility is needed to see all of it. You can set any drive as GPT as long as you are not using it for a boot drive in a Legacy (MBR) system.

Now for Windows, does Windows 8 install and run normally? Did you have any problems with any drivers when installing Windows 8?

When you do the Windows 8.1 upgrade, how are you doing it? If you were using an .iso, you would need the license for the 8.1 .iso to install, then use the 8.0 license to activate.

There is a rumor Microsoft will release the official 8.1 .iso this month, if you want to hold off and see. If you have the .iso, you can start with the previous install and end up with a clean install of 8.1.

Click to expand...

Had a few issue with Win 8 and were not resolved with win 8.1 at first.

Win 8.1 was downloaded and run from MS without an ISO or me clicking on install. Used the same number as Win 8 which has been an issues since day one for installing it.

As for the GPT, I had no issue until now since I was able to used the full 3T for data as a non OS drive.

The OS is on a 3T now and with it will not work as a 3T, then have to move to a 2T with a fresh install.

Have a boot disk failure now after it first reboot after yesterday help and attempting a repair now for the last hour.

None of the drivers have been an issues so far other than the USB3 Hub that is now working.

I will wait another hour for the spinning repair, otherwise a fresh install again and a call to the help desk.

Maybe wise to go to MS office HQ near me and request a new disk as 8.1 to deal with this mess as well lost of space upgrading.

Well did my 5th install and have real issues now related to the other ones as well new one ones.

Spent 2.5 hour with help desk last week installing win 8.1. They had to reset the password to activate win 8 and 8.1.

I have already asked for a new full Win 8.1 disk with a working number, but have to wait for the next rebuilt.

Spent an hour today again and major file corruption that you need win 8.1 disk to deal with them. Since I don't have one, waiting for a call on Sat to deal with it. The help desk try various things with no success that it has been pass off to the Escalation Engineer group. Even some update files he sent to me fail to work or install. One of the update file sent last week fail to install.

Move win 8.1 to a 2T drive and converted the 3/4T drives to GPT to get full use of the drives. Lot easier to convert than I thought it would be.

Stay with Win 7 and wait tell Win 10 come out.

tl;dr

Google mdl for a windows 8.1 iso and perform a clean install.

I did a clean install of win 8 and 8.1 last week with the help desk watching and had no applications install at the time. They dealt with various issues as they happen.

All applications are legal and up to date with current drivers.

Out of the 35 application installed, 7 fail to work regardless what I do now even thought they work a few days ago.

Since I don't have a legal win 8.1 with a number, must install win 8 first and upgrade to 8.1. Even doing this, my number is going to fail like it has from day one.

It may be prudent to run some diagnostics on your hard drive and RAM. With all the issues your having it wouldn't surprise me if you had a bad stick or RAM or a hard drive that has errors on it.

Have done that a few times with no issues. ALL drives other than the external ones are less than a year old as well the rams.

Based on some testing by the help desk, its Win software. Since I only have had these issues since moving to win 8, it saying software.

Been able to deal with software issues over the decade, this is beyond my ability. If the help desk people can't solve the issues, it saying something.

"When restarting the system with all close programs, it can take up to 5 minutes to shut down."

So did mine until I turned off "clear page file at shutdown"...................just a thought. Almost instant now.