Reinstalling Vista on 1720 (not upgrade), and having problems.

Ok.

I just got a new Dell computer (1720), that is perfectly capable of running Vista (T9300, 4GB, Go8600, 320GB HDD etc etc), so there should be no problems.

I got it with vista home premium installed on the thing. If you guys know Dell then you know they also come preinstalled with alot of crap so usually I just do a format and reinstall windows fresh.

That is where my problems come in, using my Dell reinstall Vista CD I run into a problem when reinstalling.

I boot from the CD (f12, choose boot from CD ROM), then format/delete the partition, create a new partition, tell vista to install from that partition, all goes well. It prompts me for some info, and goes through the process. It seems to run fine until it does the reboot, and gets into the infamous "Completing Installation" stage, where it sits for hours until eventually the screen turns black except for the mouse (which remains movable). It will stay like that I assume forever (I left it overnight and nothing). So then I restart the process, I've tried three times now.

Does anyone know what I can do? I tried cleaning the CD, I tried going into the bios and changing some settings (but nothing seemed off), (to let you know I am pretty computer savvy, I have built my own desktop), no external things were plugged into the computer. I'm not trying to run any fancy setup (RAID), I've swapped out the OS cd for the Dell driver CD during the reboot to no avail.

Please help.

 

Did you format the entire drive or just delete the Vista partition? It should like something might have gotten messed up with the MBR which could cause it to hang. First I would try a repair install where you run the commands FIXBOOT and FIXMBR in the command prompt. If that doesn't work you need to format the entire drive including nuking the Dell Media partition. You can run DBAN with its quick erase option to clean the drive completely and then reinstall everything yourself so you know it is correct.

 

What you need is to install the SATA controller drivers from your Drivers and Utilities disk before you can install Vista. I had my 1720 reformatted and you need to that first before installing Vista, otherwise it be stuck at the "Finalizing installation" forever. Mine is also stuck at where you described as well.

Just simply pop in your Drivers CD, then browse to load a the SATA control Drivers. Then you can install Vista.

 

That makes no sense to me, where are the drivers going to install to if there is no OS?

Can you change the hdd to ide in the bios?

 

Advanced disk options in the installer or something like that.\

You cant change the hard drive to ide (its still sata)...but you can change the operating mode to avoid this.

 

Well this what it is, and this is how I managed to install the OS from my experience. Have you even tried it?
I can try to show you screenshots on how I install my OS if you want solid proof.

Below there are a set of options, select load driver.

 

Operating mode, maybe thats what I meant, I've just read people say something about changing to ide then being able to install the sata driver.

Lol, calm down. It was only a question.

 

LOL, what are you talking about man? Haha, I know you were just asking, I'm ok man. Don't worry. I'm using the quick reply tool that's why there weren't smilies available.