Vista - Vista Installation Woes

I purchased the Vista Home Premium Upgrade Download from Windows Marketplace,
and I have been problems with the upgrade. This is an issue that many have
had, but on the first restart during installation it comes to the black
screen with the rolling green bar and copyright microsoft text on the bottom
and it freezes there. I've tried updating all of my drivers before
installing, installing without entering the activation key, disconnecting all
peripherals, and uninstalling Norton 360, all to no avail. The two things on
the upgrade advisor that I have done nothing about are my sound card (Audigy
2ZS) and the SATA/RAID controller. The sound card drivers for vista won't
install until I actually upgrade to vista and I can't find updated SATA/RAID
controllers. I did order the DVD this morning in hopes of doing a clean
install, because I don't think its possible to do that with the downloaded
version. Any help? Thanks

Todd Marks wrote:
> I purchased the Vista Home Premium Upgrade Download from Windows Marketplace,
> and I have been problems with the upgrade. This is an issue that many have
> had, but on the first restart during installation it comes to the black
> screen with the rolling green bar and copyright microsoft text on the bottom
> and it freezes there. I've tried updating all of my drivers before
> installing, installing without entering the activation key, disconnecting all
> peripherals, and uninstalling Norton 360, all to no avail. The two things on
> the upgrade advisor that I have done nothing about are my sound card (Audigy
> 2ZS) and the SATA/RAID controller. The sound card drivers for vista won't
> install until I actually upgrade to vista and I can't find updated SATA/RAID
> controllers. I did order the DVD this morning in hopes of doing a clean
> install, because I don't think its possible to do that with the downloaded
> version. Any help? Thanks

I would suspect the SATA driver as the likely culprit. If the drivers
truly don't exist yet (and I have no idea) then I'd consider buying a
plug-in SATA card which is known to be Vista-ready, just to get the
machine up and running.

The other possible workaround is to reboot a few times until the Vista
installer gives up and restores your XP machine ;o)

I've never heard of a plugin SATA card. Where would I find one of those?
Thanks for your help!

"Don" wrote:

> Todd Marks wrote:
> > I purchased the Vista Home Premium Upgrade Download from Windows Marketplace,
> > and I have been problems with the upgrade. This is an issue that many have
> > had, but on the first restart during installation it comes to the black
> > screen with the rolling green bar and copyright microsoft text on the bottom
> > and it freezes there. I've tried updating all of my drivers before
> > installing, installing without entering the activation key, disconnecting all
> > peripherals, and uninstalling Norton 360, all to no avail. The two things on
> > the upgrade advisor that I have done nothing about are my sound card (Audigy
> > 2ZS) and the SATA/RAID controller. The sound card drivers for vista won't
> > install until I actually upgrade to vista and I can't find updated SATA/RAID
> > controllers. I did order the DVD this morning in hopes of doing a clean
> > install, because I don't think its possible to do that with the downloaded
> > version. Any help? Thanks
>
> I would suspect the SATA driver as the likely culprit. If the drivers
> truly don't exist yet (and I have no idea) then I'd consider buying a
> plug-in SATA card which is known to be Vista-ready, just to get the
> machine up and running.
>
> The other possible workaround is to reboot a few times until the Vista
> installer gives up and restores your XP machine ;o)
>
>

I just looked it up. Tha SATA controller for my computer is only available
for Windows XP, but I've found the SATA cards on newegg, and will probably
order one soon. Just one question. Is SATA II backwards compatible with
SATA. The reason I'm asking is all of my PCI slots are full, and I have a
PCI Express slot open, and the only PCI express interface cards I can find on
newegg are SATA II. Thanks for all of your help.

"Todd Marks" wrote:

> I've never heard of a plugin SATA card. Where would I find one of those?
> Thanks for your help!
>
> "Don" wrote:
>
> > Todd Marks wrote:
> > > I purchased the Vista Home Premium Upgrade Download from Windows Marketplace,
> > > and I have been problems with the upgrade. This is an issue that many have
> > > had, but on the first restart during installation it comes to the black
> > > screen with the rolling green bar and copyright microsoft text on the bottom
> > > and it freezes there. I've tried updating all of my drivers before
> > > installing, installing without entering the activation key, disconnecting all
> > > peripherals, and uninstalling Norton 360, all to no avail. The two things on
> > > the upgrade advisor that I have done nothing about are my sound card (Audigy
> > > 2ZS) and the SATA/RAID controller. The sound card drivers for vista won't
> > > install until I actually upgrade to vista and I can't find updated SATA/RAID
> > > controllers. I did order the DVD this morning in hopes of doing a clean
> > > install, because I don't think its possible to do that with the downloaded
> > > version. Any help? Thanks
> >
> > I would suspect the SATA driver as the likely culprit. If the drivers
> > truly don't exist yet (and I have no idea) then I'd consider buying a
> > plug-in SATA card which is known to be Vista-ready, just to get the
> > machine up and running.
> >
> > The other possible workaround is to reboot a few times until the Vista
> > installer gives up and restores your XP machine ;o)
> >
> >

I'm using a SYBA SATA PCI card from NewEgg in addition to the
motherboard SATA since there are only two of those on the ASUS K8N and
they are used for my two SATA hard drives. The PCI SATA is used for a
Plextor SATA DVD drive.

Note that there is a higher speed version of SATA available now but
whether anyone can actually use the higher speed I do not know.

Todd Marks wrote:
> I just looked it up. Tha SATA controller for my computer is only available
> for Windows XP, but I've found the SATA cards on newegg, and will probably
> order one soon. Just one question. Is SATA II backwards compatible with
> SATA...

According to this, yes:
http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp