serious Installation problem

[Guest]

Hi I recently got the Business version of Windows Vista to install on my
computer. I had Windows XP home edition before that. I decided to upgrade,
so I checked which programs would be compatible. All but 2, which I
uninstalled. One piece of hardwere had out of date drivers. I uninstalled
the ones I needed for vista, but it said I couldn't install them now because
I wasn't running Vista, so I decided to try that after it was installed.

My PC specification is:

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3800+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.4GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Hard Drive: 203 GB
Video Card: RADEON X800 GTO
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Sound Card: Realtek AC97 Audio

Ask me if you want to know anything else.

I installed Vista off the DVD. It worked fine up until the restart after it
had ticked off all the stages of the install. When it started booting this
time, the moniter displayed it's usual startup screen to start with (showing
the motherboards logo). After that it showed a screen which was black and
had white text which seemed to allow me to select the operating system I
wanted to use, vista was selected by default, but xp was there, and another
troubleshooting one I think, but it was hard to see as this screen
disappeared after about 2 seconds, by keyboard doesn't seem to working during
this time. The next screen is also black with white text and is titled
"Windows Error Recover", this says that windows had previously encountered an
error and gives you a few options of how you want to start windows, e.g.
normal mode, safe mode, safe mode with networking. However my keyboard won't
work at this stage (my keyboard is a wireless USB one) so I can't select any
option. There is a timer which counts down from 30 and then selects start
windows normally by default.

The next screen is the Windows vista loading screen. It just says "Windows
Corporation" and has a little loading bar.

After that is loade it comes up with a blue screen which says how vista has
encoutered a serious error and needs to be shut down to prevent harm, it also
has lots more writing but it is hard to see because this screen only lasts
about 3 seconds and then the system just reboots and the process starts again.

The only time when my keyboard works is pressing the esc key when the first
startup screen is displayed (the one with the motherboards logo) to take me
to "Startup" which just gives a list of options of what hardware I want to
load first. However I can't select anything here because the keyboard and
mouse won't work so I need to just turn it off.

That is all the information I can think of now.

Please help me! This computer is imporatnt to me and I will need to get it
working again asap.

Thanks a lot.

Will Sewell

 

[Guest]

Hi I recently got the Business version of Windows Vista to install on my
computer. I had Windows XP home edition before that. I decided to upgrade,
so I checked which programs would be compatible. All but 2, which I
uninstalled. One piece of hardwere had out of date drivers. I uninstalled
the ones I needed for vista, but it said I couldn't install them now because
I wasn't running Vista, so I decided to try that after it was installed.

My PC specification is:

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3800+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.4GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Hard Drive: 203 GB
Video Card: RADEON X800 GTO
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Sound Card: Realtek AC97 Audio

Ask me if you want to know anything else.

I installed Vista off the DVD. It worked fine up until the restart after it
had ticked off all the stages of the install. When it started booting this
time, the moniter displayed it's usual startup screen to start with (showing
the motherboards logo). After that it showed a screen which was black and
had white text which seemed to allow me to select the operating system I
wanted to use, vista was selected by default, but xp was there, and another
troubleshooting one I think, but it was hard to see as this screen
disappeared after about 2 seconds, by keyboard doesn't seem to working during
this time. The next screen is also black with white text and is titled
"Windows Error Recover", this says that windows had previously encountered an
error and gives you a few options of how you want to start windows, e.g.
normal mode, safe mode, safe mode with networking. However my keyboard won't
work at this stage (my keyboard is a wireless USB one) so I can't select any
option. There is a timer which counts down from 30 and then selects start
windows normally by default.

The next screen is the Windows vista loading screen. It just says "Windows
Corporation" and has a little loading bar.

After that is loade it comes up with a blue screen which says how vista has
encoutered a serious error and needs to be shut down to prevent harm, it also
has lots more writing but it is hard to see because this screen only lasts
about 3 seconds and then the system just reboots and the process starts again.

The only time when my keyboard works is pressing the esc key when the first
startup screen is displayed (the one with the motherboards logo) to take me
to "Startup" which just gives a list of options of what hardware I want to
load first. However I can't select anything here because the keyboard and
mouse won't work so I need to just turn it off.

That is all the information I can think of now.

Please help me! This computer is imporatnt to me and I will need to get it
working again asap.

Thanks a lot.

Will Sewell

UPDATE:

I found out that if I remove the keyboard from the computer and try and turn
it on, the screen never comes out of a standby mode. If I disconnect it
during boot up, nothing happens. If I try and connect a new one, it doesn't
register as it being there (usually it flashes lights if it is connected).
If I connect it before I boot and turn it on. The lights flash so it is
connected, but the screen acts as if the computer is in stadby.

 

[dean-dean]

You might want to try running a Repair by booting to the Vista DVD.

To repair your computer using Startup Repair follow
these steps:

1.. Boot into Vista installation DVD
2.. Choose your language settings and click Next
3.. Click Repair your computer
4.. Choose your operating system and click Next. This should bring up
System Recovery Options.
5.. Click on Startup Repair
Startup Repair should now start diagnosing your system to identify the root
cause of the failure. Once it has identified the root cause, it would
automatically start repairing your computer. If you are curious to know what
Startup Repair did, you can click on the details link and see which tests
Startup Repair ran to diagnose the problem.

After Startup Repair has finished the repairs, click Finish to reboot your
computer.

 

[Guest]

Ok but how do I boot into the Vista instillation DVD?

Thanks

Will

 

[dean-dean]

Most PC's are set up to boot from a DVD/CD first, if the there is media in
the player that is bootable. This is the order, usually, set up in the PC's
BIOS. Have the disc in the player when you start your computer. It should
say something like "Press any key to boot from the DVD". When you see that
screen, press the space key, for example. See:

http://vistasupport.mvps.org/windows_vista_repair_options.htm

If you are not seeing that screen, you will have to enter your BIOS to make
sure that the boot order is set so that it it checks the DVD player first,
before your hard drive. See the following for its general instructions
(ignoring the part about having WipeDrive):

http://whitecanyon.com/esupport/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=7

 

[Guest]

OK thanks, I booted from CD and got to the repair utility. However it seemed
to go on for about an hour so I gave up. Or is this a reasonable amount of
time?

Is there anything else I can do other than that?

Thanks, Will

 

[dean-dean]

A couple questions:

Are you installing the 32 bit or 64 bit Vista Operating System? If 32-bit,
are you using the 32-bit disc to run the repair? Initially, when installing
Vista, were you wanting a Dual Boot situation, or wanting Vista to overwrite
XP on the same partition? Were you wanting an Upgrade, or Clean
installation?

No, an hour for Startup Repair doesn't seem right.

 

[Guest]

I don't know which bit version it is, will it say on the disk? I don't have
that handy at the moment, but when I get home I can check it there.

I know that I am running the same dvd to run teh repair.

I don't remember choosing the option of a duel boot system or an overwright,
but I would rather just go for an overwrite.

I did an upgrade. I find out I can do a clean install of it. But I have
some important files still on my computer. If I am left with just this
option, is teher a way I can copy some of the files over to say an external
hard drive?

I left the error checker on all night and it still didn't find any problems.

Thanks, Will.

 

[dean-dean]

Well, this is what I would do. I would re-install Vista as a Clean Install,
by booting directly to the DVD, just as you did to try the repair.
A clean install will copy every file from your old installation into a
folder called C:\Windows.old. Documents, pictures, favorites, etc., will
all be saved in folders and paths mirroring where they were originally.
While programs' files will also be copied, most, if not all, non-Microsoft
programs will have to be re-installed, since you will have a new registry,
rather than the integrated registry of an Update installation. The entire
Windows.old folder can be deleted, including old system files, once you have
retrieved from it the personal files you want to save. (Since this is your
2nd installation, you may well have a Windows.old folder within a
Windows.old folder: C:\Windows.old\Windows.old will be where most of your
relevant files are, since you were never able to boot completely into the
first installation). Try not being connected to the internet when you
install. Physically disconnect the internet connection to your computer,
and when Setup asks you if you want to connect to the internet for updates
(or something like that, I don't quite remember the exact question), say no.
You can update drivers, activate, and run Windows Update later, once Vista
is installed.

 

[Guest]

Ok thanks for that. I may try and copy some files over onto an external
hardrive in command prompt if I can, just in case. But looks like I will go
with teh clean install.

Just out fo curiosity, why should I disconnect from the internet?

Will

 

[dean-dean]

In my experience (I've installed Vista over a number of Beta versions a
number of times), being disconnected from the internet makes the
installation go faster, and prevents windows from installing updates to
drivers you may not necessarily want. In my case this curtailed Windows
choices, and made the installation of the drivers I wanted a little less
tedious. For example, my Display driver is by ATI, and all I wanted was for
Windows to install its basic generic driver for my card, versus an
outdated driver from ATI through Windows Update, with no clean way to
uninstall it. The same was true for my Realtek sound driver, whose driver I
preferred to get from the Realtek site. Of course, you can be connected
and let Windows get updates if you want; and your experience may be
completely different with the hardware you use. But the driver search and
configuration that takes place during Setup is where most installations get
stuck, it seems, in installations that have failed. Given that your
keyboard and mouse stopped functioning in your first attempt to install,
without ever knowing what went wrong for sure, I thought a speedier
installation might give Windows less elbow room for hardware conflicts
resulting in an incomplete hardware configuration. Once you're to the new
Desktop, you are home free, so to speak, and it's easier to get your ducks
in a row there, than getting trapped in a failed install.

Having said all that, I'm hoping, either way you choose to go with the
internet connection thing, that a Clean Install (it's quite a bit faster),
too, will help quell any potential conflicts.

 

[Guest]

OK I got it working! Aclean install was the only possibility. I also
couldn't enters the product key because it said I needed to be working on an
existing version of windows and wasn't on the internet anyway.

So I decided to register once it was installed, however it said that my key
was only for an upgrade. Now this really sucks because it's making me buy a
new version of windows vista within 30 days. What the hell? I tried the
damn upgrade and it didn't work

Do you think they could send me a new product key for full install or
something?

Will

Thanks for the help getting me to this stage though.

 

[dean-dean]

I think you're okay, and won't have to buy Vista again. That's the good
news. But you're going to have to re-install Vista (sorry), but this time
install it from the Vista Desktop. In other words, pop the Vista
installation disc in AFTER you have booted normally into Vista. Don't boot
from the Vista disk, like you had to before (that was the only way around
your initial problem). You can enter your key when the installation begins
(which should work, since you have an upgrade key). Since you are now in
Upgrade mode, most of your settings, etc. from anything you've done so far
in Vista (user account name, time zone, etc.) will be saved. Be sure to
choose upgrade, and not clean install, when Setup prompts you. It's up to
you if you want to be connected to the internet this time, but it might cut
down on the time needed to install if you aren't. An Upgrade install takes
longer, so don't panic when nothing seems to be happening. Also, Setup will
re-boot a few times during the install: ignore the prompt to "Press any key
to boot from the DVD", each time it reboots; i.e., don't press any key, and
setup will automatically continue in Upgrade mode after a few seconds (if
you press a key, you'll be back at square one, in which case quit the
program, and restart).

You should be able to activate your key, after the installation completes,
or tell Setup to do it automatically for you.

If your haven't installed driver updates already, you can do this after the
installation.

I believe your Sound driver is here: click the GO button for "Vista Driver
(32/64 bits) Driver only (ZIP file)"
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...3&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#1

Your ATI driver is here:
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html

Let me know how it goes...

 

[dean-dean]

Just to clarify my previous post:

There's really no other work-around, other that buying the Full Install disc
for the right full-install key, which is unnecessary, since you can upgrade
a Vista installation to Vista, being a valid upgrade path (even though your
intention, and attempt, was to upgrade Windows XP, originally).