I borrowed this fix from another posting and it worked for me! I tried
for 3 days to fix this issue until I found this. I was using a Dell
Inspiron 1720. The drivers on Dell's site gave me what I needed during
the install process. I do not know how originally posted the fix below
but they are a life saver!

-------------------------------------------

REAL SOLUTION FOUND

Your solution was an inventive one, however understanding why the error
is happening might shed some light.



The problem is caused because you need to load your correct sata diver
during the installation proccess. But there is a glitch here that traps
alot of people:

After you load the driver from the setup, Vista continues to install,
but later it needs to go back to the installation disk to get the
drivers again (for whatever reason), it will *NOT* prompt you when it
tries to do this, instead it just hangs, especially because people load
the driver from the same DVDROM that they are loading Vista from.

After Vista copies files and reboots, put the Driver disk back in the
DVDROM and during the "Completing Installation" It will search it
automatically and get the drivers and continue with the install.

If you used a floppy (for whatever reason) for the drivers, after
rebooting from the initial coping files part, put the floppy back in.

It is regrettable that MS doesn't handle this better, but alas that is
the case. Follow this and your error will disapear.

I have seen many posts about this on the internet and people suggesting
all sorts of crazy solutions. I feel sorry for the people that have
tried them all and have become so frustrated at Vista over such an easy
(yet unintuitive) resolution.

Good Luck!


--
DeHart
Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com

thanks for the help, but i tried it on my gateway laptop and it didn't work. i don't know if am doing it wrong but as soon as it reboots i took the Disk out and waited for it to show the completing installation and put the Disk back in but it still didn't complete the installation. could you help me out