Vista fresh install hangs black screen '-' first reboot

[DaveSimmons]

Any idea why a Vista install (tried both regular and SP1) will go through the install from DVD (my MSDN sub discs not Dell) without errors until the reboot stage, then it reboots to a black screen with '_' in the top-left?

XP Pro (MSDN disc not Dell) installed without any problems.

Memtest+ and prime didn't show any problems. Stock speed and Dell-supplied RAM.

The C: partition was primary, unhidden and active. It had bootmgr, bootsect.bak, windows and boot folders etc. but also what I assume are first-boot files: empty $bootdrive$, $installdrive$, $lsdrive; $DRVLTR$ set to C:

Dell BIOS is limited but sleep is S3, boot order is correct, SATA is in IDE mode, and I did not need to supply SATA drivers during the first part of the install.

I walked away for 15 minutes with each install attempt, the screen stayed at '_'

Startup Repair on the DVD doesn't find any problems

 

[Doomer]

Try stripping it down to the bare minimum needed to run. This is what i had to do to get it to install. After it's loaded, you can add the stuff back in.