Cannot Install

[Guest]

I have Athlon 64 3500 and ASUS A8nE socket 939 nforce 4 ultra mobo and
Geforce 6600 vid card w/ 1 gig RAM.
I cannot install Vista. I even sat with customer support for over an hour.
Every time I install, it restarts, then the screen goes black. If i start
in safe mode, then it tells me that vista did not install completely.

Is there a driver that I am missing or is my hardware incompatible. I ran
the advisor before and it said that i could run it. Please tell me that I
haven't wasted 250 bucks.

 

[BobS]

Let me guess...... you're trying to install Vista to a SATA hard drive
right?

You can read my other posts on this and I'm starting to see more posts that
involve Asus motherboards (nForce 4 drivers) and most likely the Sil 3132
SATA controller but don't know which is the cause. Lot's of
troubleshooting - lots of research and the answer for this hour is - load it
on a standard EIDE drive for now (either 32 or 64 bit version) and it will
work. You will note (maybe this is the connection) that on your first MS
update, it downloads a Sil 3132 driver..... Then you can see the SATA
drives. Yes, the Vista installer will see and load to the SATA drives but
when Vista kicks in and it reboots to do the final install steps - it
croaks. No error messages, black screen, and maybe a blinking cursor (or
not),

I have tried loading the new Sil 3132 drivers (32 and 64 bit versions) up
during the install but Vista doesn't appear to "retain" them - for lack of a
better description and I got the black screen. I have the Asus A8N32-SLI
model. Loads great onto EIDE and I'll play with it there until I find a
solution but for now, good luck and if you find the answer, I sure would
like to read about it.

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

I'm Having the exact same problem, same Mobo and cpu. I really don't want go
buy another harddrive if I don't have to, so any help you can give would be
really great. thanks

 

[Guest]

Ok...so if I do a clean installation (installing win vista onto a blank hard
drive, with no xp installed on it) on an EIDE hard drive rather than a SATA
things should go smoothly???

My god I hope you're right. If you are....may the gods shine praise on you
and I will pour libations in your honor.

 

[BobS]

Lost,

There was a recent post about having about the same problem if you have dual
GeForce cards installed. I do and if you do, the post said to pull one and
install. But it sounds like you have only one.

Leave your existing SATA drive alone. You can make a dual-boot system so
you can play with Vista and keep your existing system for right now. I
would highly advise you to do that and to make a complete backup of your
WinXP setup so you can recover from any major glitches.

Install the EIDE drive and make sure your BIOS settings are set to recognise
the new drive and to keep your existing SATA drive as the boot drive. The
install on the EIDE drive works great and I had no problems installing
Vista. Boot from the DVD and do a custom install (not an upgrade) on Vista
and point it to the new EIDE drive. On the first install of Vista - do not
enter the product key. If you're doing a 64 bit version, you can only do a
custom install and not an upgrade at this point.

After Vista is loaded and you're at the desktop, go ahead and make any
changes needed to your network card (if needed) so it can connect to the
internet. Do an update. After that finishes and is all settled down, be
sure the Vista DVD is in the reader and start the DVD setup from Vista. You
are now going to do an "upgrade" install to vista (upgrading the 1st
install) by doing it from within Vista.

This time you will type in the product key and uncheck the "automatic
activation" for now. You can do a manual activation later - after the dust
settles. This 2nd "upgrade" install will go just as nice as the first one.

Once it's done, you can do the manual activation (it's on the Welcome
screen - lower left if I recall correctly) but don't be in a hurry to
activate - you have 30 days. Load up any other software - play with it and
make a full backup using the built-in backup/restore capability.

Not "if" but only a matter of "when" Vista or one of your programs is going
to glitch your system and you'll need to restore from a backup. I did -
several times already and it works. Word of caution on the Asus mb. I
don't know how or why but when I made a selection to change the desktop
picture and hit preview - things went south.... Shutdown my system - now!
When I rebooted it kept telling me to install the Vista DVD and then I would
have it do a Startup repair - like a cat chasings it's tail..... Then I
tried doing a full system restore ( I did a full backup) but then it said it
could not find any restore points or backups! What? Much fiddling it
finally dawned on me to check the BIOS boot settings. Sure enough, the boot
drive was changed and picked up the Vista drive (which will be the first
drive on IDE 0 port it see's) and that's wrong for the dual-boot config.
Change it so only two drives show on the Disc drives screen and disable all
other (if any). So you want the EIDE drive and the SATA drive that WinXP is
installed on. On the boot drive priority listing - make #1 your Floppy (if
you have one so you can load in drivers if ever needed first), make #2 your
WinXP drive - that is the drive that has the ntldr file and brings up the
dual-boot screen, then #3 will be a CD/DVD - you will not have a selection
for your EIDE drive - don't worry - the boot loader steers it to it when you
select the Vista OS.

Now - you can change things in the boot file but download this
http://www.pro-networks.org/vistabootpro/intro.php and read about it. It
has a small bug (says you don't have Vista installed...;-) but it works to
modify the entries like changing the wording that shows up on the boot
screen to something more meaningful - like WinXP and Vista as being the
selections and selecting which one the default selection is. It puts a GUI
on bcdedit.exe which is run from a commnad line. Not friendly to the casual
user at all.....

More than you wanted to know but until the bugs get ironed out this is the
only solution I could come up with. Email off to Asus in the am to see if
they have an answer but I doubt they will even reply. Good boards - lousy
customer service and tech support - Fuhgedaboutit..

Any questions on the above and I'll try to answer but read the Asus manual
if you don't know how to change BIOS settings.

Bob S.

 

[Guest]

I also have an ASUS A8N32-SLI (nForce4) motherboard, 2 SATA IDE (non-RAID)
HDs and am running 2 NV7800GT PCI boards in SLI mode. I have similar
problems. I tried to install the Vista Ultimate Upgrade edition from within
Windows 2000 and it hung on the first reboot (black screen after ignoring the
"hit any key to boot from CD/DVD..."). I tried loading various NV Beta/RC1/2
chipset drivers during the Vista intallation with no success. Then I
formatted my HD partition and tried to install from the DVD - again, it hung
at the first reboot. Finally (and reluctantly), I installed XP Pro SP2 and
the latest required drivers (from a previously saved image). I was able to
perform a clean installation from with XP - I have no idea why this worked
with XP and not W2K. As I mentioned earlier, I am reluctant to keep this
arrangement because it is my understanding that upon Vista activation my XP
Pro product key will be de-activated. I have been dual-booting XP Pro (one
instance for business and one for gaming) and I had planed to use Vista for
business and keep XP Pro for gaming until the Vista drivers are released
and/or mature. In any case, I thought I would share that I was able to get
the Vista upgrade installed on this configuration from within XP Pro.

Best Regards,
Greg I

 

[Guest]

Ok.....I solved the problem..it was a lot easier than I thought. I could
bore you with how I came to figure this out, but I"m not going to. Here is
the answer to my problems, and hopefully yours too.

Here is my setup:
Athlon 3500, Asus A8N-E mobo, 1 gig RAM, SATA HD, Geforce 6600GT

I bought Wind Vista Home Premium, not the upgrade. I bought the full $240
full version. Every time I installed it, and I installed it on a brand
spanking new SATA HD, it would hang after it restarted from installation. I
dont' iknow if hang is a good word. My computer would automatically
restart...i would see the windows loading bar...then my screen would go black
and the HD wouldn't even be active anymore. I reinstalled a million times
and it just wouln'dt work. I got tips from Bob S (thanks for the input) and
part of his advice worked. I actually did a variation to what he told me and
it ended up working perfectly. It was so easy i kicked myself. Here's what
I did.

If you are going to install the full version of Windows Vista (not an
upgrade, but the FULL version) onto a new empty HD, here's what I did.

1) Pop in CD and boot computer from CD.
2) Go along with the easy installation instructions.
3) When it comes to the part where it says type in product key, DO NOT type
in product code. You should also uncheck the box where it says autmatically
activate and hit "next". That's right...you can proceed with installation
without having to type in your Product key.
4) The stupid thing installed perfectly and without a hitch after that.

YOu can activate your copy of windows within 30 days after installing.
Tha'ts all I did. Why that worked i don't know. Just do it.

Hope this helps. IF it did, let me know.

 

[Guest]

I have Athlon 64 3500 and ASUS A8nE socket 939 nforce 4 ultra mobo and
Geforce 6600 vid card w/ 1 gig RAM.
I cannot install Vista. I even sat with customer support for over an hour.
Every time I install, it restarts, then the screen goes black. If i start
in safe mode, then it tells me that vista did not install completely.

Is there a driver that I am missing or is my hardware incompatible. I ran
the advisor before and it said that i could run it. Please tell me that I
haven't wasted 250 bucks.

 

[Guest]

I also have the sam problem with Vista Ultimate and a Asus A8N-E Board with
dual sata HDD and also a Geforce video card.
Tried 3 times to install and gets to the final stages and boots to the
Microsoft loading bar and then keeps rebooting. Sounds like the same problem.
I guess I will return and wait for a new release.

 

[Guest]

I contacted Microsoft and Asus today (2-5-07). Neither one offered any
assistance.
Asus said to download new drivers, I asked if they were on their website and
he said no. I don't think very highly of the response I got from either one.
My Motherboard is an Asus A8N-E, only a little over a year old. Asus says it
is not Vista certified.

I thought I would try contacting them before I return the software. Guess
the next step is returning and maybe wait for a new release to try.

If anyone has any luck installing with this board, please let me know.

 

[BobS]

denp,

Rather than make you search - here's a post I made earlier today.
......................................................................................................
Just to follow-up on this so others will know that Asus tech support
confirmed that you *cannot* load Vista 64 bit version on to a SATA drive
that uses the nForce 4 (for AMD) drivers. There's plenty of other problems
too but since they're a bit swamped with calls, I didn't have much time with
them. They did say, the new drivers most likely will show up on the Nvidia
site first.
........................................................................................................


Bob S.

 

[Guest]

I couldn't get it to work in 32 bit either, didn't try 64 bit.

 

[Guest]

For what it is worth, are you guys trying to install Vista to SATA drive, but
also have an old PATA drive attached? If you do, you will for sure have
problems installing. Simple solution to this is to disconnect ALL IDE (PATA)
drives before you install to SATA drive. Once the OS is installed and running
on the SATA drive, you can then hook the PATA drive back up.

Let me know if any of you have IDE and SATA drives attached to your systems.

 

[Guest]

I ended up returning Vista. I have 2 SATA drives and a DVD Burner and DVD
player
attached to IDE connectors. I don't know if that would have
caused the problem. I will wait awhile and maybe try Vista agin.

 

[Guest]

Where did you buy Vista that they are allowing you to return it? I bought
mine from Bestbuy and their policy is that they will not refund you on open
Software. I am going to speak to a manager today.