New install ... reboot ... nothing

[Guest]

Hi,

I am doing a new install. The install starts up, tells me I need to do a
custom installm since there is no way to do an upgrade, I enter key, it
installs, reboots, and the message about pressing a key to boot from CD comes
up and I wait for the last dot and nothing. It just sits there. The cursor
still flashes and the message is still there, but the boot process is not
advancing. I was like okay there might be a bug in the disk and continue
loading at the end of that message, so I take the DVD out and reboot, but
there is nothing but a blank screen. And it sits there, the only difference,
no message saying if want to press a key to boot from the CD, so the same
exact thing that is blocking it from booting any further is still there, so
not the boot disk.

This happened with both the Beta 2 DVD that MS sent me and the new RC1 that
I just DLed off their server today.

So, what's going on? Is there a way to actually boot into the OS?

The computer has a P4 2 Gig, 1 gig mem, 60 Gig HD, GeForce 4 MX 420 Graphics
Card, and a plug in Firewire card. This should all be standard hardware.
Although, it is a Dell system. Is there an issue with Dells and using a
different Windows version?

 

[Rick]

Is your HD just connected to IDE1 or is it a SATA drive or some Raid
configuration that requires that a driver be loaded when you install the
operating system? That may be your problem since it occurs on everything
you've tried to install.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. It's a dell computer from 2002. The Drive is plugged
into the first IDE chain as the master. It is IDE and not SATA. On install it
detects the HD and runs it just fine and installs just fine. It's an Intel
Chipset. Windows XP loads just fine on it and boots. There are Drivers for
the controller on the Dell website, but I would figure that if XP supported
it then the drivers would still be in Vista.

Cheers.

 

[Guest]

New developments here. I deleted all partitions on the drive and then
rebooted, I didn't get a boot disk in the drive in time and the same black
screen came up. I thought this was weird considering I had no partitions at
all. Normally one is suppose to get the error message about the bios not
finding a bootable media whether on a floppy, CD or Hard Drive. So, I booted
up a special boot disk and formatted the MBR. I then booted the Vista boot
disk for RC1, made a partition and installed. I now have a bootable
installation.

So, if there are Microsoft people reading this, this is a bug. Basically,
the Vista installation did not overwrite a previous bootloader installed on
the MBR. A person not knowing much about computers will not know to format
the MBR, or how, or even know what the MBR is. So, the installation needs
to take this into account and ask permission to overwrite a bootloader if one
is pressent. I tried to do the system recovery options and I selected the fix
boot items but that did not fix the issue. I had to format the MBR. That was
time consuming to figure out.

Thanks all.
Jon