Unable to upgrade PE to v6

[illumn8r]

Hi, I have an almost brand new Pearl Expert w/ Titan v5 (White Model) and have not been able to get it upgraded. Tried various USB sticks (PNY 8gb and Staples Relay 4gb) and those won't even boot, used an old Attache 4gb I had lying around and was able to get it to boot, upgraded the bios fine, upgraded the HD firmware fine, and then went to install the new software, it boots fine and I get windows and then a Pearl Expert screen but when I hit next I get an error that says it fails to find installation information. See attached picture.

Makes no sense to me since the stick boots and there is info on the stick. I have tried a couple of times, downloading the stick creator to 2 different PCs and creating it but no luck. Anyone have any ideas??

Dave

[icke_siegen]

Maybe someone else has more insights - here are my 50 ct:

- has the desk a CD-ROM drive fitted? If so, did you disconnect it as mentioned in the Upgrade Guide?
- please double-check the correct BIOS settings
- next, if possible, could you try another USB stick?


Some words regarding boot problems - essentially even the creator fails to write the stick correctly:
What I found is that some boot problems might stem from the size of the stick. Today I bought some new sticks, and the smallest I could fetch were 8GB in size. No way to write neither the BIOS boot thing nor the PE boot thing on it, both creators fail. However, when I use diskpart to shrink the partition on the stick down to 4gb, I can write the PExp boot image, and can neatly install from it. But then, no way to use it for installing the BIOS. Seems that the routine in the creator which attempts to make the stick bootable is quite picky - and in one case more than in the other. However, another 4gb (native) stick did the trick...

[illumn8r]

Brand new desk, no CD ROM
BIOS is correct but it isn't a boot issue

2 different USB Sticks would not boot, old 4gb stick I had lying around booted into the Upgrade program but then can't find it's own installation files for the upgrade (see picture).

BIOS upgrade and HD Firmware upgrade went just fine using the same stick, it's booting just like it's supposed to but can't find the v6 files that IT installed onto the stick

[icke_siegen]

Hm,

sorry for my additional remarks - they were related to the problems with your other sticks. Maybe you can make one of them usable for this process, too. I can give some hints regarding diskpart - but this is serious stuff. Doing something wrong might doom your original computer

Technically the installer doesn't copy something from the stick, but it mounts a part of the stick as a 'virtual drive' (I guess drive letter is X or Y), and copies from there to the hard drive. And this is the reason why I asked for the CD drive and the BIOS - both might affect the mounting process.

However, I'd really try another stick in your case.

[illumn8r]

Is there a list of what sticks work? It's kind of silly to keep running to the store and spending money on a stick _hoping_ it will work. Plus I'm really confused as to how the stick I have is "kind of" working, it boots, it has windows, it sees the Pearl software, why can it not see the v6 files?

Thanks for your help

Dave

[niclights]

I doubt there's anything wrong with the sticks.

I'm not sure at what stage this error is occurring. I have forwarded this to try and find an answer.

[icke_siegen]

Hi Dave,

unfortunately there is no such list (at least I don't know of one) - and if you google for something like 'how to boot windows 7 from a usb stick' you'll get pretty much the same answers.

However, for you, I'd suggest:
- try the 'working' stick again, but at first use windows to check its integrity (in windows explorer, right-click the stick, select properties, tools, integrity check) - maybe there is just a 'smaller' error on the stick. After this, format the stick, run the recovery creator, and try again.
- if this doesn't work, try to get another stick. It's really only a guess, but currently I'd go for a 2GB one, or a 4 GB one - but not bigger. Maybe someone else can share his experience with larger sticks.
- and finally, and only if you feel confident with your computer, you might use diskpart to shrink your larger stick, to try this:

start diskpart (hit the windows key and type diskpart, then ENTER. confirm the UAC warning. A black console window starts.) And now:

Please make damn sure you select the correct disk - otherwise you might loose all data on your computer!!!

list disk - and find the disk number of the stick
select disk x - where x is the number you found in the previous step
clean - this flushes everything on the stick
create partition primary size=4000 - create a new partition, slightly smaller than 4gb
select partition 1 - select the created partition
active - activate it
format fs=fat32 - format it; this will take a while
assign - populate it to Windows
exit - quit Diskpart

This way, you shrink the stick - and at least I could successfully use the Pearl Recovery Creator to make this stick ready to install a Pearl Expert from it.

I tried to translate the 'answers' of the program to english:

Code: Select all

Microsoft DiskPart-Version 6.1.7601
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
Auf Computer: SB-LENOVO

DISKPART> list disk

  Datenträger ###  Status         Größe    Frei     Dyn  GPT
  ---------------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Datenträger 0    Online          465 GB      0 B
  Datenträger 1    Online         7650 MB      0 B

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is selected

DISKPART> clean

Disk cleaned.

DISKPART> create partition primary size=4000

Partition successfully created.

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is selected.

DISKPART> active

Current partition labeled as active.

DISKPART> format fs=fat32

  100 percent done.

DiskPart has succeeded formating the volume.

DISKPART> assign

Drive Letter assigned

DISKPART> exit

[illumn8r]

Thanks guys, another person also suggested maybe a "small" error on the stick, I'll look for another stick, am using 4gb ones at the moment and will try somewhere other than Staples for a 2gb, if not then I will certainly follow your suggestions on diskpart.

Dave

[illumn8r]

SUCCESS!

Must have been a small error on the stick that worked for everything else. I bought a new stick from Best Buy (a 4gb PNY Attache) and did a Full Format on it 1st rather than a Quick Format, it worked

Thanks again everyone.

[niclights]

Great to hear it is now sorted. Looks like I was wrong!

[icke_siegen]

Many thanks for the feedback