Vista Install Freezes at "Setup Desktop"

[Guest]

Install x86 Beta 2 goes smoothly through Login and "wait while we setup your
Desktop".
Then I get a rather dark blue screen with a faint geometric pattern and a
safe-mode sized cursor.
The hard drive works for about 10-15 minutes and that's it. Nothing more
happens.
After waiting for another 20 minutes to 2 hours cntrl>alt>delete causes a
reboot defaulting into "setup windows". (Boot into XP is available too) I
allow this to proceed and end up at the same place.

Did this 4 times:
With and without intnt connection, always with username and password, always
without check for updates, without activate now, with default firewall
(green) without firewall (red). with and without DVD in my NEC 3550 drive.
Same result.
Always starts from scratch and stalls after "wait while we setup your
Desktop".

Incidentally: Andre, Thanks for your tips on DVD making. My download lasted
7.5 hours Wednesday night with continual disconnects and restarts from the
server . Quite a grind for an old fellow..I'm 78 now and need my sleep.
Complaining aside, I verified the download with Nero MD5, burned it in Nero 6
at 2.4x and verified it. I strongly doubt if the DVD is at fault. If you
think it might be, I can wait for my wife's DVD to arrive. I aint gonna
download that monster again! No sirree, sir!
XP RC1 was great fun... This sucker: I'm not so sure.

Is there an F8 selection I should have used? I tried to boot into safe mode
and it went to install windows instead.

My machine: Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9
Athlon 64 3200+
Dual NEC 19" LCD monitors
Pre-existing Sata HDD on Sata 0, Win XP Home SP2 on C:\
Installed a 40GB Pata drive on IDE0, Single Master. Formatted a 24.4 GB
partition for Vista.
Setup saw all 4 partitions and selected Part1 of Disk 0 on IDE 0. Just
where I wanted it!

ATI x1300 video card 256 MB, 2x 1GB ram. All extraneous stuff removed. AVG
anti-virus disabled before first try.
Help... Art

 

[Andre Da Costa [Extended64]]

(If setup becomes non-responsive), do a cold boot, Start the computer,
when the Windows Boot Manager is displayed, select Microsoft Windows press
F8 on your keyboard and finish the installation..
--
--
Andre
Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta

 

[Guest]

Andre, I believe I did that 3 times. It just repeats the original try and
quits at the same place each time. Perhaps I don't understand "cold boot".
I used cntrl alt delete to restart the PC, it came up with start windows,
which I allowed. A couple of times I used F8 and selected install windows.
same thing again. Art

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem with the dark screen and geometric shapes. I have
tried every install method I can think of - from upgrade to dual boot to
clean install with a format. All goes great until it sets up the desktop. I
am at a loss on what to do... I had an easier time with the beta of WinXP!

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem with the dark screen and geometric shapes. I have
tried every install method I can think of - from upgrade to dual boot to
clean install with a format. All goes great until it sets up the desktop. I
am at a loss on what to do... I had an easier time with the beta of WinXP!

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem with the dark screen and geometric shapes. I have
tried every install method I can think of - from upgrade to dual boot to
clean install with a format. All goes great until it sets up the desktop. I
am at a loss on what to do... I had an easier time with the beta of WinXP!

 

[Guest]

sorry for posting my question three times. I had an error message on the
first two posts saying they failed.

 

[Guest]

I noticed other people having the same problem and also using the ATI x1300
video card. I pulled mine out and went back to my ATI x300 and it booted up
just fine. Try it - it may work for you too.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Rusty.
I too, found a workaround, though perhaps a bit more draconian than yours.
Thinking that the problem might be that the previous XP drivers were not
properly deleted, I abandoned my dual boot machine for now; assembled a
completely new PC with a preformatted 40 GB PATA drive, ATI X700 Athlon 64
3000+ ASUS A8VE board that was completely uncontaminated by anything
Microsoft.
Install went smoothly til I tried to name the PC ASUS VISTA where it
stalled with the next button greyed out. I changed the name to ASUSVISTA
(one word) and it finished the install , no more problems.
Thanks again. Art