PSollich

Hi Bob,

Disconnecting the SATA drive did not help, however, *disconnecting* my PATA
drive made Vista boot from the DVD.

And it's installing right now - guess the moment of truth comes when it
tries to reboot...

Thanks for your advice!
Peter

"BobS" wrote:

> Not trying to take away any work from the MSVP's but having gone thru that
> same problem - here's what I learned.
>
> My problem was the Sata drive controller was not supported by Vista until
> after the Vista updates were done - and then Vista saw my Sata drives.
>
> During the install of Vista, the installer uses a "generic" driver that
> works for the Sata controller. Then when it went to the 1st reboot - that's
> when the Vista (image) software takes over and of course not having a x64
> Sata Sil 3132 driver for 64 bit - it crashed and burned......
>
> I have found a x64 driver for the controller and will be putting that on a
> floppy so that driver can be loaded when the Vista installer asks for
> additional drivers.
>
> That gives you an idea of "why" it hangs. The installer is different
> software from the Vista image that gets loaded and when it kicks it - if it
> doesn't have what it needs, you get error messages or hangs or both.
>
> If you do not know what is causing the install to crash and burn then:
>
> 1. Minimize the hardware connected to the system. Remove any additional
> cards installed (NIC's, sound cards, TV Tuners, game cards, etc.). You need
> a graphics card, a hard drive, floppy (maybe) and a DVD along with your
> memory.
>
> 2. If it still hangs - you've narrowed down the problem considerably. Start
> turning off features in the BIOS such as serial ports, parallel ports, USB,
> Firewire and leave only those settings need to have a minimal system. This
> is for troubleshooting purposes only - and will help narrow down what
> driver(s) may be needed.
>
> 3. How is the hard drive formatted? If its FAT 32 you need to convert to
> NTFS but I would think the installer would catch that real early - but then
> again...
>
> 4. If you have a spare hard drive, remove the hdd that is now in the system
> and hang a formatted spare drive on as a test. Boot from the DVD and do a
> clean install as a test. Yes - you can do a clean install with the Upgrade
> package. Install Vista the first time and do not enter the key. Once it
> installs (if you get that far), then do an in-place upgrade from Vista.
> Insert the DVD, run the set-up, select the option for doing an in-place
> upgrade and this time when it asks - enter the product key and uncheck the
> automatic activation - do it manually is what everyone is saying.
>
> Bob S.
>
>
>
> "PSollich" <PSollich@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:54350116-F5AA-41BF-8C55-940FE6A34119@microsoft.com...
> > I'm trying to install Vista Ultimate (32-bit) and I get a hang when it
> > tries
> > to reboot the machine.
> >
> > Machine is a dual processor workstation (two AMD Opteron 285 processors),
> > mainboard is a tyan thunder K8SE (S2892) with 8GB of RAM (box dual boots
> > into
> > Windows XP 64). Video card is Asus EN7600GS.
> >
> > I tried both updating my Windows XP installation (hangs when it first
> > reboots), and booting from the DVD (hangs right away).
> >
> > I installed both Windows XP and Windows XP 64 on this box with no
> > problems.
> >
> > Not sure what to do now...
>
>
>