Tried an in place upgrade of Windows 7 to Windows 8 preview on the Touchsmart TX2 that we have christened Lazarus as we keep bringing it back to life. A recent repeat of the heating with a power hairdryer has given the unit a new lease of life and so far (touch wood) its working as expected.
Using a 32bit iso image – I burned a CD and used it to install on a physical desktop – which proves the media was okay. That machine has been running Windows 8 for a week or two without issue. So the logical thing was to try an install on Lazarus.
The install / upgrade – runs and runs and runs – and eventually produces a screen saying ready to boot Windows 8 for the first time – just before it gives a message saying basically “We could not install Windows 8 and we don’t know why – we will therefore reinstall your old o/s”. It starts the recovery and finally brings up a Windows 7 logon – back as it was when I started.
A few people have claimed success but I think my next attempt will be with another completely blank disk to see if Win 8 can actually install. Hopefully this attempt will not take another 4 hours for pretty much nothing.