Vista Upgrade

[Brian]

I am running Vista Home Basic. Recently I installed a new internal drive as
the master, and kept the original partitioned one as a slave. Prior to doing
this, I upgraded Vista from basic, to Ultimate, but now, after installing my
system with the original computer recovery disc, The upgrade disk no longer
gives me the option to upgrade ftom basic, to any ultimate. It tells me that
my Windows version isn't new enough even though I update regularly.When I
install Ultimate directly, after completion, the computer doesn't boot up.
It goes in to a loop, where it boots to a point, then starts again.
Two things i would appreciate help with:

Why can't I just update Vista, or, why won't the computer boot up from a
clean install?

Brian

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Brian,

I suspect perhaps you installed a service pack prior to trying the upgrade?
The disk will only upgrade a system that is at the same SP level as the
disk, meaning that if the disk is pre-SP1 and SP1 is installed to the
system, it won't work (SP1 would have to be uninstalled first). It will give
an error message about the installation being newer than the disk.

Why won't it boot from a clean install? Probably missing required
proprietary drivers for the manufactured system, likely to support sata
hardware. When you upgrade, the drivers are ported over from the existing
installation, this would not a occur in a clean install. The manufacturer's
image for reinstall is probably customized to include them.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
Vote for my shoe: http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com