I've reverted back to XP

[Guest]

I'd been running the Vista Beta 2 on a Dell precision 380 for some while and
though not perfect it was useable. I did a clean install of Vista RC1 on the
same Dell Precision 380 and it was completely unstable, blue screens at
logon unable to install network printers because the spooler crashed
repeatedly, Internet Explorer crashed within seconds of starting up. Much
slower than Beta 2 ....

That was just a horrible experience so I've given up and gone back to XP.

 

[Marc Nutty]

Have you tried are re-clean install?

You may have been a little unlucky with a conflict or something on the
installation of RC1. So far for me RC1 has been brill, and just as fast as
XP. (imo)

 

[MICHAEL]

This would drive me crazy. If I had Beta 2 working fairly well (I did) and
then clean installed RC1, which then proceeded to cause me all sorts
of problems- I would at least try one more time. Do another clean install,
unplug all non-essential devices- any USB thingies you have. Any hubs,
cameras, web cams, external drives- unplug them all. Then after the install
completes, start plugging them in one by one and let each install before
moving to the next one.

Go ahead. What else you got to do? ;-)


-Michael

 

[Guest]

But it really is a very plain vanilla PC - it's as it left the Dell factory.
Another guy here has also installed RC1 on a similar Dell same graphics card,
and he is having similar issues including blue screens inabilty to install
network printers and problems with IE crashing.

I've got real work to do, I need a PC that only dies once a day not every
few minutes.

 

[Tom Lake]

But it really is a very plain vanilla PC - it's as it left the Dell
factory.
Another guy here has also installed RC1 on a similar Dell same graphics
card,
and he is having similar issues including blue screens inabilty to install
network printers and problems with IE crashing.

I've got real work to do, I need a PC that only dies once a day not every
few minutes.

That's why MS tells you not to install on a production machine.
If you have only one machine and you use it for your business,
DON'T install a pre-release version of ANYTHING!

Tom Lake

 

[Mario Rosario]

If you downloaded your RC1, I suggest you do a checksum on your download (to
check that it was not corrupted). I'm not sure how you would check the burn
for errors.

 

[Guest]

I also had been running earlier versions of Beta 2 on my Dell Precision 380.

However, I cannot get RC1 to install as it cannot find a suitable hard disk
to boot from!
It was configured as RAID 0 and I end up getting STOP code errors like
0x0000007B (.....) and 0x00000001 (.....) iastor.sys problem.


Did you have any problems?

There is an option to select a suitable driver during the install but I
can't find suitable drivers.
Did you use any drivers from the Dell ResourceCD or the Intel web site?
Or was it a "simple" upgrade?

I have read that the WinXP Drivers should be suitable, so I tried
re-installing back to WinXP and upgrading to Vista RC1 (instead of Beta 2
5472 to RC1) but it still has not worked?

 

[Bill]

I also had been running earlier versions of Beta 2 on my Dell
Precision 380.

However, I cannot get RC1 to install as it cannot find a suitable
hard disk
to boot from!
It was configured as RAID 0 and I end up getting STOP code errors
like
0x0000007B (.....) and 0x00000001 (.....) iastor.sys problem.


Did you have any problems?

This is a known problem since Vista does not have driver support for
RAID.

I managed to get a clean install of Vista RC1 installed from XP using
the XP drivers, and it's a bit of a convoluted procedure from this
forum:

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/1-vt66299.html?postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

But I managed to do it quite easily, you just have to load the drivers
even though Vista can "see" the array from XP.

This for my NForce4 chipset system. I don't know what your Dell uses.

 

[David R. Longnecker]

The Windows XP RAID drivers from dell.com worked just fine for my Gen4 and
Precision 670 workstations. When it prompts for a hard drive, just 'Add
Drivers' and browse to the floppy disk that you've copied them onto. I'm
assuming the same for x64 editions as well.

IAStor.sys sounds like the files from my Dell Gen4 that's running a SATA
RAID controller on the motherboard, but I never experienced those stop issues
with RC1.

I'd recommend checking the version from Dell's web site and/or ensuring your
media is not corrupted.

-dl

 

[Guest]

Thanks Bill.

My Dell has an Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller.

I put the drivers on a floppy and selected them during install. I got a
slightly different error, a GUI Error Dialog with a Red Cross stating that
"Windows installation encountered an unexpected error...." and a "0x0000..."
code.

I changed from RAID 0 to a non-raid configuration, again I selected the
driver during install and I'm now back at a BSOD STOP error - but its a
different one this time, 0x00008086!

I've tried re-burning the DVD at a "slow" speed as I've seen references to
that but to no avail.

I think that I might need Vista specific drivers although ours seem to have
had success with the WinXP versions :-(

 

[Bill]

Thanks Bill.

My Dell has an Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller.

Google is your friend:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=95141

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=574708&SiteID=17

These forum pages show that you should be able to install ok. Follow
the directions carefully and have everything ready before you start.

 

[Guest]

I had already used Google and found both these links by prior to posting in
this forum.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Guest]

I gave up on the SATA drive configuration!

I removed one of the 250GB SATA drives and inserted a 120GB IDE and after
several attempts got the jumper-setting correct and manged to recognise the
drive.

I disabled the other 3x250GB SATA Drives in the BIOS and changed the setting
to Combined which should disable RAID.

I have now successfully installed Vista RC1

I'm sure that Intel/Dell will bring out Vista specific drivers although
hopefully Microsoft will put them on the install media.