Help! Re-installing vista problem

Hi,

today i received my new inspiron 1720! but when i try a clean install i get a problem. the installation hangs at 'completing installation'. I've been waiting for hours. any solution?


Thank you.

 

Ok, i've chatted to a dell rep. and he helped me through the problem (good service!) for other people that are also experiencing this problem here is what you should do:

1) restart your computer
2) when the dell screen appears press F2
3) now you are in BIOS, go to onboard devices
4) sata operation
5) there you change ahci to ata


thats all! save settings and restart your computer and everything should work fine. I hope that i helped some people with this

Greetings


PS.: this 1720 is awesome, really worth the wait! i'm still installing all the things i need. I'll post some pics as soon as i'm done

 

thanks for the info. I was gonna reinstall Vista this weekend as well. Glad you caught this.

 

The same I did to get XP to work, but do I have to change ATA back AHCI after everything is done?

Thank you!

 

I didnt change it. Another guy couldnt start up when he changed ATA back to AHCI so i think you better leave it as it is

 

Baaaaaad advice. For the Dell Rep to tell you that was not only negligent but improper.

By running in ATA you have slowed your overall hard drive down quite a bit.

The reason for the hang is because you havent installed a specific driver, Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

Once you install it from where you are now...go back and change it to ACHI and then go to selections below and ensure cache is enabled.

This is dealt with through many threads here. Ide be pleased to answer any questions.

I will include my HDTune results before and after....


My average jumped from 55 to 70mb/sec.

You will be amazed!!!

 

Wow! Thanks for pointing that out. I'll definatly put back the settings to what they where. My games will even load faster now

 

I had the same problem , Instead of Changing the BIOS, while reinstalling just click on the Load Driver and select the SATA driver provided in the Driver Disc. It will install. Thats the way i reinstalled and there was no issue. Hope this helps.

 

Do you install the Sata driver after the Vista install starts or before?

 

You should load the driver before the install starts . I loaded the drivers before selecting the partition for Vista install.

 

Thanks thisis good to know as I am installing vista on a 1710 later today

 

THANKS !! It finally worked, after 2-3 hours of testing all I could think of :|

Thanks again man...

 

thanks for the advice guys. Has a similar issue with a Vostro 1700.

The internet is always quicker than phoning Dell!

 

If you want to re-enable AHCI after installing, follow these steps:

1. Open Start Menu
2. Click "Run" - or click into the search field in Windows Vista
3. Type regedit and press enter
4. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci
5. Double click the "Start" key and change the value to "0" (without quotes)

Restart your computer, enter BIOS, change to AHCI and everything will work again.

Edit: Once rebooted you should always install the AHCI driver for your system specifically. The msahci service is really just a way to get Microsoft to recognize controllers running in AHCI. It will work without the driver also, but the Intel Matrix Storage Engine driver will give you better results.