Solved Windows 8.1 Preview not installing

Windows 8.1 doesn't seem to like my 40GB IDE HDD, it won't seem to install no matter what. Upon selecting & formatting the partitions the setup just keep throwing 0x80070057 "Windows could not format a partition on disk 0" even if I reformat the HDD as per MS support article.

I rebooted into Windows 7 on my primary HDD and reformatted the 40GB HDD and attempted to install Windows 8.1, this time it gave me "Windows deployment engine could not initialize".

I tried something else, installed Windows 7 flawlessly on the 40GB HDD then proceeded to upgrade to Windows 8.1 via setup.exe. Everything went fine until the first reboot when it got stuck and hangs at exactly 77% with the fish and spinning orb. After around 30mins it reboots then asks me to 'Select Keyboard Layout" then requests which OS to select. From there I only have 'Windows Setup' and 'Windows 7'. Whenever I selecting 'Windows Setup' it ends up in black screen with the mouse cursor followed by a loop where it continuously asks me for Keyboard layout.

My Windows 8.1 x64 iso is not damaged (hashes are correct) nor is the 16GB boot USB disk that I used. What could possibly be wrong here?

The HDD is a 11 year old Maxtor D540X-4D 5400RPM but it's fully functional (no errors in Windows 7 and correctly detected in my BIOS).

Fully wiping the HDD using GParted doesn't help either.

No clue? :/

Yeah, there is something about that disk that 8.1 doesn't like... but what's different to Win7 on this (install) level?
Will it let you use only one partition? Install without the system reserved one or expand just that one to full size.

Is the disk fully OK? Scan it for cluster errors.

Try to put 8.1 on a vhd on the Win7 partition, I don't guarantee anything but is worth a try.
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2393-windows-8-vhd-create-boot-dual-boot.html

Good luck

Hopachi said:

Yeah, there is something about that disk that 8.1 doesn't like... but what's different to Win7 on this (install) level?
Will it let you use only one partition? Install without the system reserved one or expand just that one to full size.

Is the disk fully OK? Scan it for cluster errors.

Try to put 8.1 on a vhd on the Win7 partition, I don't guarantee anything but is worth a try.
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2393-windows-8-vhd-create-boot-dual-boot.html

Good luck

Click to expand...

It's maybe an incompatibility with the installer. I can create/format partitions from it but it won't go any further. Unfortunately it doesn't allow me to use only a single partition since it requires that 300MB recovery partition. But it doesn't make any difference in this case anyways.

I'll try to install Windows 8 then upgrade manually, hope this works out.

The HDD is fully functional as I said earlier. Windows 8 was previously installed on that disk but it's now wiped clean.

Upgrading from Windows 8 to 8.1 works. The issue was indeed with the 8.1 setup hating my HDD. Weird