Vista - Restart problem when installing vista ultimate

I am having a problem installing windows vista ultimate 64 bit, these are my system specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Quad-Core 2.83GHz Fan Cooler Master Hyper TX X2 Motherboard ASUS P5N-T Deluxe NVIDIA 780i Memory Corsair XMS2 Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz Storage Seagate 1TB (2x500GB) SATA 32MB cache Graphics 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB (SLI) Audio Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Optical Plextor PX-820SA 20X DVD-writer SATA Chassis Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 Power Supply PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W Quad It is a newly built system with no previous operating system, when I first booted it up I followed all the instructions and made sure that the dvd drive was first to boot and then I booted from cd/dvd, everything was installing but then my computer restarts and so does the installation. Although vista states that my computer will restart numerous times during the installation, why does the install make me put in my product key again and start the install from 0% after restarting automatically. I was about to install over the previous installation but then windows comes up with this message saying if you install over this partition the previous windows files will be stored under windows.old and I can see that the previous installation attempt has taken up some space on one of my two hard drives, im basically not touching anything, please help.

Hi mike905,

Welcome to the forum

4gb RAM has been known to cause installation issues

You might try installing with just 2gb RAM - add the other 2gb after installation.

To prevent the Windows.old option, select Drive Options ( advanced ) and format the partition before installing - see steps 10 and 11 of this tutorial

Clean Install with a Full Version of Vista

Hope it helps

SIW2

Thanks for the heads up on the tutorial, I have another question regarding my newly built system. Do I have to do any other BIOS related functions other than setting the cd/dvd rom to boot first (for example, updating the BIOS and the drivers, or is it a necessary procedure to install my OS first then do all the driver updates after? Also, what are the possible concequences of taking out 2 gigs of ram because my system already recognized 4 gigs and installed them automatically when I first booted it up. Before I proceed with any action I need to be totally clear on everything in order to minimize the risk of any fatal hardware failures. Thanks for the support.

Hi,

Bios checks what's attached a soon as you start up - so should immediately recognise you now have 2gb .

Usually , you would set the Bios to see the hdd as the first boot device, disable things you don't have or aren't using e.g. floppy drive and serial and parallel ports and usb legacy support . this will stop it looking and loading drivers for things you aren't using.
However that's not necessary - it will work on default settings.

My Bios flash update (ASRock) is done from within Vista.

I would think about changing the mobo settings and check their website for updates after installing. I take it you have a cd with drivers for your mobo - there may be newer ones since then, but they should get you started. Also, my mobo website warns not to update Bios if everything is running fine - don't fix it if it ain't broke - see what yours says.

You might take a look at this

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-g...setting-it-up/

BIOS settings demystified | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com Bios settings demystified

You may not need to go into setup to set cdrom to boot first, and then go back to change it. You probably get an option almost straight after startup - something like;
F2 for setup
F11 for boot menu ( depending on your Bios make , your F numbers may be different )

Press F11 (or whatever yours is - you get a pop-up boot menu)

Arrow down to cdrom drive - put install dvd in drive- wait a few secs., press enter. It may ask again- "press any key to boot from cdrom" - press enter again.

Hope that helps

SIW2