Need driver for AMD E450 processor

If installer asks you where to install and then fails before anything is written then I bet you a (virtual) dollar it is corrupt installation media. It certainly isn't a missing driver as it hasn't done anything.

How the install works is it loads a small system (WinPE) into RAM. Then it will ask you questions about "Do you want to install this?", "Where?" and whatnot. It then copies everything from your USB (or CD) to your disk. Faffs around, reboots and then (only at this point) starts trying to use drivers for your system.

If when you booted from your USB you couldn't even tell it to start (because the screen was black or your keyboard didn't work) then it is a PE driver issue. I have to add drivers when installing on Mac hardware for this reason.

If it starts (so it asks you if you want to install and you are able to say "Yes") and then fails immediately it is because the image is corrupt - it can't write the Windows image to the disk. Or perhaps you disk is bust. This is the point that you are at as I understand it.

If it fails later after the reboot the logs (mentioned above) will be somewhere (where depends on when the failure was) but in that case any missing drivers can be added to the install.wim (which we can add if it comes to it). You aren't at this point yet so either your installation media or your disk is broken.

Don't get depressed anyway - at least it is clearer what the problem is ...

Bree said:

There is a driver for these older displays that should provided by Microsoft through Windows Update.

It is failing before installing Windows though.

Thanks again people. I didn't have a lot or hair last year, I've got much less now! I've come to the conclusion it might be a problem with either faulty media or the HP PC's USB , so I've just finished downloading the Win10 iso file, and burning it to CD-ROM'

Going back a few hours I thought I might have media problems so I got a never-used 8GB fUSB flash drive and tried to download Win10 to it. I got the following message:
We’re not sure what happened but we’re unable to run this tool on your PC. If you continue experiencing problems, reference the error code when contacting customer support. Error code: 0x80042405-0xA001A
When I searched this error I found a post from Thomas THK on this forum that said I could try downloading the media tool to the USB I'm going to use for the install, and executing it from there, overwriting it with the download. That's underway.

While I was waiting for this, the iso download had finished, so I burned it to CD-ROM and tried to boot from it. Once I got the BIOS working, it booted OK - slow as, but it booted.

What happened next is totally different to booting from a USB drive - it went through the gamut of installing Win10. At this point, I have a working PC, Hallejah. OK, the screen display is maybe 800x600, I have no Internet, ..... - but I have something that lights up when I turn it on.

So, thanks everyone, without you I think I would have thrown in the towel.

Clearly, the next thing is to get the 'net working. On that PC it uses a D-Link USB dongle - I don't recollect having to load a driver for this, but I'll search to see what I find.

BTW, as far as I can tell, all the USB flash drives I check seem fine. I suspect there is a problem with the HP/AMD E450 relating o the USB 2.0 implementation. Maybe? Any thoughts?

davryn said:

Clearly, the next thing is to get the 'net working. On that PC it uses a D-Link USB dongle - I don't recollect having to load a driver for this, but I'll search to see what I find.

BTW, as far as I can tell, all the USB flash drives I check seem fine. I suspect there is a problem with the HP/AMD E450 relating o the USB 2.0 implementation. Maybe? Any thoughts?

That's excellent then :)

Do you have a router or just the dongle? If you have a router, normally your ISP give you an Ethernet cable (mine always have anyway). If you do you could connect direct from your PC to router which would make downloading drivers easier. Once you get a connection Windows Update should give you most of the drivers you need.

I don't know about USB issue - some people have had problems where install would work on USB2 but not USB3 (or v.v.) or would work on one port but not another. I never did though.

Hi, yeh, it's good news, thanks very much for everyone's help.

I've got fibre optic and a router, but it's in the garage, under main roof, but at the other end of the house. But what you say about had already crossed my mind. Up and move everything into the garage, connect by Ethernet to the modem/router, do a Windows Update, see what works then.

Sounds like my job for tomorrow.

BTW, this sort of thing is why I got out of IT Consultancy. I was working with SMEs - typically 10-30 desktop PCs, Unix server, and as the whole environment got more and more sophisticated, I couldn't justify charging an hourly rate to 'play' with this sort of problem - but I couldn't afford not to attack the issues that arose, because that what the client demanded. They just didn't understand that the environment had become one for specialists, not generalists.

So I got out. Enough griping I think. Thanks again.

Funny you should say that Bree, indeed it is all now fine, but only after I got the Internet working.
Which is a bit of a story in itself:

As I said before, the WiFi relies on a D-Link N300 dongle, and when I looked in my archives (i.e. the back of a cupboard) I found the original installation CD mini-disk, which I had to copy to a full sized disk so I could install the drivers. But I couldn't get the Internet working even so. When I checked the Devices and Printers I saw the D-Link had an error 10 - driver error. So I had to copy a new driver from dlink.com.au to my laptop, unpack the compressed folder and compressed setup file there (because the Win10 download to the Desktop can't handle compressed zip files), put those files on CD, install that, and then the Internet magically came alive.

The reason for documenting this in detail is in case anyone has problems re-installing a D-Link dongle - the original device driver no longer works - maybe I should put this in a separate thread with a D-Link Nano N300 heading?

Anyway, it's 1 am here in Aussie, so I'll quit for now, tomorrow I'll start reloading 4 years of data.

So, thanks to everyone, I think I can mark this a 'solved'.