Absolutely NOTHING has worked!

[Guest]

I decided, against my better judgement, to purchase Vista today. I have
reset all bios features to normal clocking and latency, updated all system
devices drivers, and run XP's Windows Update till no further updates are
available. To clarify, the system is 100% stable under XP SP2, the bios are
flashed, and nothing is overclocked. I purchased a copy of the Ultimate Ed.
Upgrade. I have attempted a "flat" install from the HD, I have tried an
upgrade off the DVD from in XP, and I have attempted a "clean install" from
in XP. I have not been able to succesfully install Vista no matter what the
work around. Vista will not even boot properly from the factory shipped DVD.
When I boot off the DVD the system either hangs at the night rider screen
(scrolling green bars) or it will BSOD. The same situation occurs upon
upgrading or clean installing from XP. No matter what I attempt, I can not
get the install to advance out of a native XP enviorment. YES, I ran the
Upgrade Advisor and it informed me I was good to go. Vista itself says there
are issues w/ my Nvidia card but it claims it can proceed w/ installation. I
spent over an hour on hold with Microsoft's technichal support today before
hanging up out of sheer frustration.

My system is as follows:
Athlon XP 3000+ 2.1 ghz CPU
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Mobo
PNY 6600 AGP Video Card
2.5 GB DDR400 Ram

First and foremost, I am not a moron or a novice. I understand what I am
entering into. Please do not reply with worthless answers such as "do a
clean install" or "buy a mac". Trust me, I have tried both alternatives. As
I have mentioned, I have covered ALL bases. Ram latency is set to standard,
I have attempted install with a diffrent PCI graphics card, I have changed
driver configurations, and I have played with various BIOS settings. My
system is not brand new, state of the art, but a 256 mb graphics card with
2.5 gb of ram on a brand new Raptor hard drive should MORE then run an OS. I
realize that Aero is likely a resource nazi, but I can not even get far
enough as to find out. I am completely stuck and VERY frustrated. I knew
there would be complications and driver difficulties going into this upgrade;
but the DVD will not even properly boot!?!?!?!?! Alright, come on Microsoft,
you had 5 years! After $250.00 of my money I expect a product that will
atleast mount the installer before crashing, this is a new low even for
Redmond....

If ANYONE has any advice or work around for slipstreaming the Vista install
disc w. diffrent drivers or ways to get the purchased legit public release
DVD to even mount, I would be appreciative. As of now, I am a very
exasperated nerd. I do want to upgrade to this OS and I am happy to embrace
change, but I am being shoved in the direction as to believe the this is
utterly impossible to adopt and must forgo until atleast Service Pack 37.


Has anyone ANY suggestions on what will make a product, one that can't even
be mounted of an original install disc, WORK!!?!?!?!



Thank you in advance for responses.

 

[Sascha Benjamin Jazbec]

are you speaking of vista x64 or x86 ?
IDE or SATA drives ?

also have you tried booting the DVD and going to "repair options" - run the
memory testing tool or a tool like memtest ?

tried removing one Dimm of Ram ?

vista is very agressive when it comes to faulty Ram and it does a full
memory check before setup starts for minimal requirements testing.

SJ / germany

 

[Guest]

WD Raptor 74gb SATA on a SiL 3114 RAID controller. This is not the same
controller aforementioned to be giving everyone significant issues. I have
an alternative IDE HD, but installing the OS to it is not, nor should it need
to be, an option. Windows XP will install and run perfectly fine on this
existing machine (as demonstrated by my posting this reply on it).

The processor is a 32-bit AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 2.1 ghz. I am installing the
x86 ver of Vista.

I have performed the ram test and discovered no faults.


Thanks Sascha for the reply. I appreciate the ideas.

 

[Jim Fisher]

"Jason Sansone" <Jason

Vista itself says there

are issues w/ my Nvidia card but it claims it can proceed w/ installation.
I

Borrow a video card from someone and try again.

 

[Guest]

I've tried it w/ a BFG Nvidia 5500 PCI. Exact same results.

 

[Jim Fisher]

I've tried it w/ a BFG Nvidia 5500 PCI. Exact same results.

Well, that certainly sucks.

I saw in another post for some suggested the following BIOS adjustments:

"Turn off the following features in the CMOS settings of your computer.
See the hardware documentation or manufacturer for instructions.

..All caching, including L2, BIOS, internal/external, and write-back caching
on disk controllers
..All shadowing
..Plug and Play
..Any BIOS-based virus protection feature"

Other things to try: BIOS update? Borrow another DVD ROM? Perhaps a bad
DVD disc?Can one "upgrade" from perhaps the RC1 or RC2 then upgrade to
Ultimate?

Have you tried to install the OS on the other HD you mentioned?

I would definately consider taking RAID completely out of the picture. Mobo
RAID rarely actually works when you need it the most, anyway. I own a
computer service company and mobo-based RAID has helped perhaps once in the
5 years since it has become popular. My experience is that unless you have
a bad-ass seperate RAID controller (with it's own processor, RAM, etc), you
are simply better off imaging for backups.

I hope you'll post your final resolution here.

Luck!

 

[Guest]

"Well, that certainly sucks."
Yes it does....


"..All caching, including L2, BIOS, internal/external, and write-back caching

on disk controllers
..All shadowing
..Plug and Play
..Any BIOS-based virus protection feature"

Most have been done, will do the rest.


"Other things to try: BIOS update?"
Done.

"Borrow another DVD ROM?"
I will try to find alternative media. Have attempted on two diffrent ODD's.

"Can one "upgrade" from perhaps the RC1 or RC2 then upgrade to Ultimate?"
Good question, don't know. I have XP Pro SP2 running, and I havent tested
Vista until now since it was Longhorn. That was a disaster and I chose not
to use RC1 or RC2 from that experince.

"Have you tried to install the OS on the other HD you mentioned?"
Not yet as it is my back up of all media. I will attempt to flip flop
everything as to test the IDE drive.

"I would definately consider taking RAID completely out of the picture."
There is only one SATA drive on the two controllers, so I do not have an
array. The controller is RAID capable, but I am not using RAID.


"I hope you'll post your final resolution here."
Assuming I can find a solution, I will definately share all feedback.


Thanks guys!

 

[Tim Bostonia]

i would check with your MOBO maker to see if there's a bios upgrade and/or
chipset update (.inf files)... Vista installed for me but it took the MOBO
and inf updates to get it stable...

Vista's a stinker when it comes to reconizing devices... specially USB and
Bluetooth... the older NVidia card may be a problem too... I don't believe
Vista's supported on cards below the 6000 series, and again, that could be a
..inf problem... are you using the latest XP drivers for the PNY card ? I
would install those first... Vista should install "native" drivers for the
PNY card, but NVidia also has a WHQL certified driver for Vista...
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp... they're not the
greatest but they work...

Hope that helps some... t

 

[Guest]

Tim,
I have the newest drivers installed for the 6600 GeForce. I have all the
most recent updates for everything in the system. The chipset is nForce2.
ASUS has not released a BIOS update for the Mobo. Sadly, I doubt they will,
yet the Upgrade Advisor has given me no hickups and claims I allllll set to
proceed with Microsoft suicide.

I have spent a few hours talking to tech support in India and Canada. They
have been extremely helpful in reminding me how to open and close my DVD-ROM,
to check the disk is in the drive, and that I need to use my mouse to click
on upgrade. They also adamantly reminded me I purchased and upgrade and I
would not be able to do a clean install. I thank them for the leap forward
in progress they provided.

Tim, all good ideas. Unfortunately, as my subject line reads, nothing is
working.

Anyone got any crazy thoughts?

 

[Peter Hayes]

Tim,
I have the newest drivers installed for the 6600 GeForce. I have all the
most recent updates for everything in the system. The chipset is nForce2.
ASUS has not released a BIOS update for the Mobo. Sadly, I doubt they will,
yet the Upgrade Advisor has given me no hickups and claims I allllll set to
proceed with Microsoft suicide.

I have spent a few hours talking to tech support in India and Canada. They
have been extremely helpful in reminding me how to open and close my DVD-ROM,
to check the disk is in the drive, and that I need to use my mouse to click
on upgrade. They also adamantly reminded me I purchased and upgrade and I
would not be able to do a clean install. I thank them for the leap forward
in progress they provided.

Tim, all good ideas. Unfortunately, as my subject line reads, nothing is
working.

Anyone got any crazy thoughts?

Faulty DVD?

 

[Guest]

I finally got it to work. The DVD media was fine. Vista didn't want to
cooperate the my North and South bridges. Only was able to install after
changing Mobos. It wasn't the SATA controller, because I disabled it
physically with the board jumper and attempted an IDE ATA drive. If anyope
else is using nForce 2, have fun...

I ultimately will have to upgrade, but for now Im using a diffrent Mobo and
processor. Im only ticked because Upgrade advisor andf Vista both claimed to
be fully compatible.

 

[Guest]

Only while attempting a Vista installation did I find out that certain nVidia
chipsets do not play nice with a specific LiteOn DVD drive. The combo of
that chipset, that exact model of drive, and Vista were simply never going to
co-exist. I swapped in a dfferent drive for Vista and installation went
flawlessly. Put the LiteOn back in and it would not recognize discs and
would complain that it needed a driver update. Of course there were no
drivers to update. A firmware update seemed to go fine then it permanently
forgot what region it was.

It's currently on RMA with LiteOn. Model SHM-165H6S

 

[Roy Coorne]

Tim Bostonia wrote:
....

Vista's a stinker when it comes to reconizing devices...
... the older NVidia card may be a problem too... I don't
believe Vista's supported on cards below the 6000 series, and again,
that could be a .inf problem...

That's definitely a misbelief: Vista is fine in recognizing and
installing older display adapters!
I have successfully tried Matrox G400 32 MB, Matrox G550 32 MB, MSI
GeForce4 MX440 64 MB, PNY Quadro NVS 280 AGP, Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro
128 MB... and drivers are updated via Windows Update.


Roy