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Solve : 64 bit hardware not compatible with 64 bit OS? |
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Answer» I bought my shiny new Dell with Windows 7 64 bit 6 months ago, and 3 months later, over the period of a week, I had several crashes and random restarts. It finally decided to not boot back into Windows one day. Dell, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to put the option for recovery mode in the Windows boot loader and not the BIOS. I downloaded Windows 7 64 bit and tried to boot. It got to the Windows is loading files screen and then restarted every single time I tried. So I dug around and found OpenSuse Linux 11.1 64 bit and tried to boot that. Got to the first menu, didn't matter what I selected, it restarted. So I did some more digging and found a copy of Ubuntu 9.10 32 bit. It worked fine. So then I proceeded to download Windows 7 32 bit, and using the product key on my case, INSTALLED Win 7 32 bit without a hitch. I have searched the Internet high and low, but not a single thing I have read about has even come close to what my problem is; That my hardware is 64 bit, but I can't run 64 bit Operating Systems. I am an experienced COMPUTER repairman and software developer, but I have never seen a problem like this one and I have no idea where to even begin looking. I have searched the Internet high and low, but not a single thing I have read about has even come close to what my problem is; That my hardware is 64 bit, but I can't run 64 bit Operating Systems. I am an experienced computer repairman and software developer, but I have never seen a problem like this one and I have no idea where to even begin looking.Up to now only a few have had experience with 64 bit systems. In a nutshell, the 64 bit OS requires the device drivers to be written i n the 64 bit mode. Too few hardware developers are making 64 bit versions of the drivers for hardware products they sell. Have we heard this before? Remember how Windows 98 drivers would not always work in Windows XP? This is just Déjà vu all over again.Quote from: rj.alaskan on February 06, 2011, 05:55:18 PM I bought my shiny new Dell with Windows 7 64 bit 6 months ago, and 3 months later, over the period of a week, I had several crashes and random restarts. If it's only six months old it should still be under warranty. Why not exercise your warranty? Quote from: rj.alaskan on February 06, 2011, 05:55:18 PM Dell, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to put the option for recovery mode in the Windows boot loader Yeah, I hate that. I don't know what they were thinking. Quote from: rj.alaskan on February 06, 2011, 05:55:18 PM I downloaded Windows 7 64 bit and tried to boot. It got to the Windows is loading files screen and then restarted every single time I tried. Where did you get it? Quote from: rj.alaskan on February 06, 2011, 05:55:18 PM So I dug around and found OpenSuse Linux 11.1 64 bit and tried to boot that. Got to the first menu, didn't matter what I selected, it restarted. It could have been a bad disk, especially if you had to "dig around" for it. Quote from: rj.alaskan on February 06, 2011, 05:55:18 PM So then I proceeded to download Windows 7 32 bit, and using the product key on my case, installed Win 7 32 bit without a hitch. I have searched the Internet high and low, but not a single thing I have read about has even come close to what my problem is; That my hardware is 64 bit, but I can't run 64 bit Operating Systems. I am an experienced computer repairman and software developer, but I have never seen a problem like this one and I have no idea where to even begin looking. If no 64 bit operating systems work COUPLED with the fact that it was crashing and restarting, then I would suspect the CPU. If I were you I would want more conclusive evidence that no 64 bit operating systems will work. I would try several different 64 bit ISOs and use different media, like USB to try to install them. Really, your best course of action at this point would be to contact Dell. Like I said, if it's only six months old it should still be under warranty. Quote from: Geek-9pm on February 06, 2011, 10:08:33 PM Up to now only a few have had experience with 64 bit systems.define "few". Quote In a nutshell, the 64 bit OS requires the device drivers to be written i n the 64 bit mode.This has nothing to do with his problem. Quote Too few hardware developers are making 64 bit versions of the drivers for hardware products they sell.Again, you'll have to define "few" here, because I've yet to see a piece of modern hardware that doesn't have a 64-bit driver. Quote Have we heard this before? Remember how Windows 98 drivers would not always work in Windows XP? No, I'm afraid it's not. 32-bit drivers cannot run on a 64-bit operating system because on a 64-bit operating system the drivers must be native 64-bit CODE. There is no whimsical magical pixie driver compatibility layer that allows 32-bit drivers written using 32-bit instructions and designed for a 32-bit environment and with 32-bit assumptions to run in the vastly different world of 64-bit. The change boils down to the fact that in order to create a 64-bit OS they had to have a 64-bit kernel, and the kernel needs to interface directly with the various hardware drivers and therefore they must be 64-bit as well. Windows 98 uses a monolithic kernel architecture. Windows XP uses a Micro-kernel architecture. Windows 98 was based on their Earlier codebase. Windows XP was from the NT codebase. They were, in effect, entirely separate products. The only reason some windows 98 drivers ran on Windows XP was because those drivers ran within a specialized driver model designed specifically to make the goal of writing drivers for multiple Windows operating systems in those ays easier; the Windows Driver Model, which meant the driver code itself ran in user mode but interfaced with kernel mode; the idea wasn't only to make it easier to write multi-platform drivers but also to try to prevent blue-screens. The thing is, the fact that you could get any windows 98 drivers running on XP was a testament to their dedication to compatibility, it wasn't some engineered decision on their part to not let windows XP run windows 98 Drivers. And of course your entire post has absolutely nothing, at all, to do with their problem or any of their questions. |
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