[SOLVED] Trying to load Windows 8 on new hard drive, errors out after updates

[Captain Karaoke]

I apologize for any repetition as I know there have been other Windows 8 threads but after reading them it didn't seem like they addressed our situation.


Have a Gateway (ugh) laptop with a bad hard drive. Installed a new drive (Western Digital 500gb) used the methods outlined in another thread to load Win 7 and used that wonderful utility to extract the key code from the Bios. We then formatted the hard drive again and loaded Windows 8.

No problem so far.

We took a couple of updates, restarted, no problem.

The next big sweep of updates was something like 95 of them. It seemed to take all the updates, rebooted, and then said "failed to take Windows updates - reverting changes"

This happened three times in a row. Format the HD, load Windows - everything seems fine. After the big sweep of updates something happens and it crashes and has to undo the updates.


We swapped out the memory chip in case it was somehow bad and tried a different new hard drive for the same reason. It just finished taking the big sweep of updates... and crashed.


I swear we're either missing something or there's an update it's taking that the system is choking on. Either way, we need to get this resolved quickly. The customer is getting impatient and we're about out of ideas.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - and let me know if you need any additional info.

 

[NYJimbo]

The next big sweep of updates was something like 95 of them. It seemed to take all the updates, rebooted, and then said "failed to take Windows updates - reverting changes"

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59326

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57683

You're welcome.....

 

[mlcomputers]

I had a similar problem with a customer computer. Ended up being faulty RAM that was causing the problem. Even though the memory had passed previous diagnostic checks.

Jason

 

[Captain Karaoke]

Thanks for the links, Jimbo - that was exactly the issue.


Un- Effing -believable.


Loaded 8, manually went to updates, sorted by size, and started loading them in chunks of 20. When I got to the bigger ones I did chunks of 10.

After the important updates finished, loaded 8.1 from the Store with no problems, either.


I'm just flabbergasted - FLABBERGASTED I TELLS YA! - this turned out to be the solution.

Thanks to all original posters. I'm glad this worked out.

 

[Xander]

I did this instinctively one day -- just picked the smallest bunch of updates (a few MB total) just so I would know it was updating alright and then did the rest en masse via WSUSoffline.