Keyboard and touchpad freeze on OS install

So I recently purchased a Dell M1330 that had a very low-end HDD (120gb, 5400rpm) and no RAM so I installed a new HDD (250gb, 7200rpm) and 4GB of RAM. The HDD was brand new so it had not been formatted nor had an OS been installed on it ever, so I decided to pop in a windows vista OS install disk and format the HDD/install vista.

On the first non-black and white install window (blue/green/yellow background with the title "windows vista" and 3 drop down menus and a next button), I found that I was unable to use the keyboard or the touchpad. And since I couldn't enter in any data or move the mouse, I basically sat on that screen until I force shut down the computer. I didn't hear the HDD or the CD-drive spinning to I don't think the computer was lagging, and I was able to at least use the keyboard arrow buttons, "y", "n", "enter", and "esc" buttons in the bios screen so I don't think the keyboard is having mechanical issues. This problem also came up when trying to install vista using other boot disks.

Can anyone tell me what's going on with this machine? I think it has something to do with the fact that the HDD is brand new but I'm not sure what about it would not let me use the touchpad and keyboard. I mean both devices are directly connected to the motherboard right? Any help at all would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

Have you tried removing and reinstalling the drive? Is it the same type of drive (SATA/SATA2, etc)?

 

If the original drive had vista installed, you could just clone the whole thing over to the new drive, no need to do a fresh install. Acronis do a trial version of their 'Easy Migrate' app which works a treat.