New Windows Installation stuck

[octester]

It's my old hardware, core i7 860, 16 GB of DDR3 Ram, and a 1650 Super.

It's stuck on this weird flashing underscore thing. I have no clue why it's doing this

IMG_0196.HEIC

[whispous]

Can you post images in a format other then HEIC

 

And make sure the photo of your screen isn't obscured entirely by reflections.

Aside from that, can you take us through what you're doing to get to this stage? Is this booting from a DVD, a Memory stick?

How did you make the windows installation media?

Which version of Windows are you trying to install?

[octester]

This is as good of an image as I can get. I can't turn off the RGB on my keyboard.

I used rufus to mount the Windows 11 installer to a USB.
And, it's the newest version of Windows 11. It's literally a fresh ISO.

 

Edit, whoops, forgot to put the new pic.

Edited yesterday at 07:56 AM by octester

[Kilrah]

Might need to force Rufus in MBR/BIOS boot mode. Or use Ventoy instead.

 

I also wouldn't expect current Win11 to work on that, on my old i7-970 the last to run is IIRC 22H2 (maybe 21H2?), anything newer just bluescreens during boot.

[whispous]

Yea Windows 11 is super not compatible with your first Gen i series CPU. At all.

 

[octester]

It confuses me, because I only started having problems after I tried to dual boot with linux, and had to totally reinstall. I'm gonna try Ventoy to see if that fixes it.

[MLConian]

You might want to see if you can install an older version of Windows 11 - 25H2 is tricky on older hardware, to say the least. Your best bet would be 21H2, and then see if you can do in-place updates with the Microsoft Update Assistant (Rufus should've "broken" enough of your registry to allow that upgrade path).

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, MLConian said:

and then see if you can do in-place updates with the Microsoft Update Assistant

For me neither updates nor clean installs work past 21/22 (don't remember which). Tried both multiple times.

 

You'll be able to go through the installer through, the posted issue of not booting is about the boot media but the point is there probably isn't much point trying to fix boot media with current.

[octester]

I really don't want to keep fighting shadows, so I'm just gonna install CachyOS on it instead.

[OddOod]

6 hours ago, octester said:

can't turn off the RGB on my keyboard

You *can* unplug it....