Is it possible to know why installation of Windows 8 was unsuccessful? [duplicate]

When I tried to upgrade 7 (standard install, primary NTFS partition), the installed stopped at 29% and gave me a message that "Installation failed". Not even proper punctuation! I have no idea where to look for error files and there could be a multitude of issues affecting this, so where can I look for more info. Is there a CLI switch for something akin to verbose mode that I can pass to the installer?

Solution 1:

Windows setup creates log files on the hard drive system partition at these locations, depending on how far setup got before failure what locations and logs that will be available.

Reading these logs may help determine at what point installation failed and why.

$windows.~bt\Sources\Panther (Log location before Setup can access the drive.)

$windows.~bt\Sources\Rollback (Log location when Setup rolls back in the event of a fatal error.)

%WINDIR%\Panther (Log location of Setup actions after disk configuration.)

%WINDIR%\Inf\Setupapi*.log (Used to log Plug and Play device installations.)

%WINDIR%\Memory.dmp (Location of memory dump from bug checks.)

%WINDIR%\Minidump*.dmp (Location of log minidumps from bug checks.)

%WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep\Panther (Location of Sysprep logs.)

Source of Information