Vista Clean Install Hangs

[Guest]

I have a PC with

ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Latest BIOS 1707)
GeForce 7900 GS Graphics
2 GB RAM
Running XP Pro Now

When I try to install Vista as a clean install the computer hangs.

I have removed all external USB and IEEE 1394 devices
Run ChkDsk (on boot)
Defragged the drive
Disconnected all hard drives and installed a new SATA 160 GB drive.

When I boot to the Vista Ultimate DVD the pretty pale/smoky blue screen
comes up and that's it.

Any ideas?

Chris

 

[Guest]

You did everything you are not supposed to do. You should leave everything
plugged in, connect to internet, not run chkdsk, have a valid operating
system installed, although you should disable/uninstall any utilities
especially antivirus. You should check bios for the SATA drtive setting and
make sure it's set to automatic. Is it formatted NTFS? Run the Upgrade
Advisor for clues to incompatibility. You must use a full version of Vista
for a clean install on a bare drive. You must have a working operating system

 

[MICHAEL]

You should leave everything plugged in

That is just wrong. Many users will benefit
from unplugging any non-essential USB devices.

not run chkdsk

It is a good idea to run chkdsk, do some disk cleanup
and defrag before installing.


-Michael

 

[Guest]

Hi Mary

Thanks for the response. I have tried a clean install on a new IDE drive and
a new SATA drive on this particular PC as well as an upgrade to the windows
XP Pro which I had running on a pair of SATA drives in RAID 1. I removed
those drives to attempt to a clean install on an SATA and an IDE (both 160 GB
Western Digital) drives.

I'll check the BIOS settings again but the did appear correct to me. The
drives were formatted NTFS by the utility provided by Western Digital (They
call it Data Lifeguard Tools V 11.3 provided with the drives)

I have nothing connected to the PC except keyboard, monitors, mouse and
speakers.

This is one heck of a challenge and as you can imagine very frustrating. I
appreciate any help I can get, I am considering pulling the video card
(NVIDIA 7900 GS) and trying a cheap standard old VGA card that I have laying
around somewhere but I know it will not be compatible with Vista.

The Upgrade advisor recommends only that I change the video driver and sound
drivers after installing Vista. There are three or four programs that also
need to be updated again "after" installing Vista.

I have not tried removing or shutting down any AV or other software as they
were not installed on bare IDE and SATA drives when I was trying the clean
install.

Do I really need an operating system on a drive to install Vista? That does
seem a little dumb if one is bulding a PC from scratch.

Regards

Chris Cane

 

[BobS]

Do I really need an operating system on a drive to install Vista? That
does
seem a little dumb if one is bulding a PC from scratch.

Regards

Chris Cane

No you do not. It's now a well documented "undocumented" feature that you
can. See this

http://www.windowssecrets.com/comp/070201#story1

It works just fine.

Bob S.