I cant install Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit on Alienware M17X

I have my own copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit on a dvd and on a bootable usb drive. However ever time i try and boot of dvd it gets to vista install then says it cant find the dvd rom and cant install. So if i then try to boot off usb flash drive it wont find the hard drives. But if i install windows 7 rtm ultimate 64 bit thats on another usb flash drive it works fine. But when i have windows 7 installed sometimes i get the blue screen of death. If i install vista with the alienware cd that came with the computer it works fine. But thats just home pre and i want ultimate. so why is this giving me such a hard time? i CAN use the vista dvd and usb flash drive on another computer and it works fine. why is it not working on my new alienware??

 

come on somebody must know what is going on. this sucks that i can only use the oem disc that came with my computer. why cant i use my vista ultimate disc?

 

Its your RAID configuration. You need the NVIDA drivers, I ran into the same problem using the Alienware provided copy of Vista on a system that didn't originaly have RAID configured.

 

so how do i put those drivers on the cd then? i cant install through windows and i need it to beable to boot off dvd like you normaly do to install wondows. the werid thing is i can install windows 7 no problem.

 

opps also sorry. the alienware cd works fine and i didnt have raid configured when i got this in the mail. i even installed the oem alienware vista disc that came with this computer and then booted off the vista dvd that had ultimate and when it went to reboot it got the blue screen of death. i tried it over 4 times. i was almost going to stop raid but i like have the dual ssd drives.

 

I don't know about the dual SSD drives, but managed to get my dual SATA drives to work by going through this. Thats a step by step guide I put together, but the short of it is copy/decompress the drivers to a usb thumb/flash drive (there's a link in that guide), boot with the Vista CD, when it says it can't find teh drivers point it to the location on the usb drive, and that should take care of it.

 

If you have Vista HP, is there a reason for going to Ultimate?
It only adds bootlocker and a few other crap items that you won't end up using. unless your version of HP is 32bit. then i understand

 

Hi noreaster,
This is a very common issue when you install form a copy of Vista that doesn't have service pack 1 installed. Unfortunately, early realeses of Vista don't contain the driver necessary for your DVD drive. You need to contact micrsoft and have them send you a copy of Vista that includes server pack 1.

Thanks,
Gabe