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Part 2: Installing Windows Vista, Cannot find file d:\sources\install.wim

Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in PC Software | Posted on 17-11-2006

Right before lunch I decided to give generating a Vista key one more try and sure enough I finally got it to generate.  I finished up some code I was working on and then went to lunch to grab a sandwich real quick hoping I could get through most of the install during lunch.

For those curious, I am installing Vista on my AMD 64 machine.  The only difference from what is listed on my other blog is I have 2GBs of memory now instead of 1GB.  After hunting around for a few minutes I found the Promise Fasttrak 378 driver I was going to need and I rebooted the machine with the DVD I burnt in the drive. 

After several minutes I was greeted with an installation screen.  I entered my key and pressed next.  And then BOOOOOM!  The installation blew up.  I was told my installation was canceled and the error was 0x80070000D.  The text read: 

Windows cannot open the required file D:\Sources\Install.wim.  Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation.  Error code:  0x8007000D.

I pressed ok (since that is all I could press) and went back to the main screen and chose the repair option hoping it would get me a little further along.  I was able to see my devices:  floppy disk, DVD drive, and even my external FireWire drive.  I explored the DVD drive and I could see the install.wim file on the disk.  WTF!?

Thinking I may have had a bad download I went back to MSDN and checked the Sha1 hash key.  After a few minutes my Sha1 generator came back with the same key.  That removes that theory,  our files are an exact copy.

I did some more digging on the Internet and found that other people had the same problem.  Mostly with Virtual Machine installations (which is all I had done with Vista myself up until this point).  Someone stated they thought the DVD player was the problem, someone else said they did a re-burn and it solved the problem.  Since I had validated I had a good copy I decided to reburn another DVD with another program.  This time I used Alcohol 120% instead of Nero.  Unfortunately I had the exact same problem and lunch is now over.  Stay tuned while the saga unfolds.

Comments (59)

Windows Vista SUCKS big time you should do something about it damn

I tried twice,& both times it gave me the same error messgae,witht he use of a DVD+R.

WHat am I doing wrong?

I didn’t have the 120,so I used what I had & it didn’t work.

amazed. i tried this too and it worked. 

Thanks your a tech god. I can’t believe this worked, but it did!

The weirdest part was that in my error message the installation program was looking for a drive letter that didn’ even exist.

Hey man, I had this problem today trying to install Vista 32 on a virtual machine. I’m not using a fresh copy of Vista I’m using a reinstallation DVD, so the install is looking for the Dell Partition D:
Of course that isn’t there, so it’s not continuing. To solve, I need a copy of Vista 32 from anywhere, and enter my licence. It will then choose what to install and I’ll be okay. Until then, I can’t install it!

Thanks a lot Dell, thanks a lot Microsoft. You’d think for the money you’d just get a proper disc!

I have run into the same issue and spent several hours on end trying to figure it out and make Vista run on my desktop. Seems that after trying to image the install disk and burn it at the slowest speed possible I was ready to throw in the towel and use my PC for target practice. I tried one last thing and guess what it worked. I have multiple Sony DVD- RW drives which would not run the Vista Install disk, so I barrowed a different DVD Drive which just happened to be a Samsung DVD-RW drive and it loaded and installed with absolutely no issues, error messages, complications, or problems what so ever. It actually took less than 15 minutes to fully install Windows Vista from the actual install disk. So if you run into this issue try usinga different drive… Good Luck…

Took it out gave it a good wipe and re-inserted it. Then it worked!

Removing 2 of my four memory modules solved the problem.

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