Vista Install is Stuck

[AMDZen]

So I got my new computer completely put together last night, the specs are in my sig (its the gaming rig with the e8400). I went to BIOS first and changed some things around (not OC'd as the sig says, that was a previous install of XP I turned it back to stock) like the AHCI thing. I have read that this increases performance but you should enable it before an install - so I figure why not go to Vista x64 at the same time.

I enabled AHCI and through the Vista CD in, it had the original bar saying "Windows is copying files" or something to that extent, and then went to the Bar like XP's except all it has is Microsoft Corporation under it. The bar would just go left to right over and over, I waited 20 mins and decided something has to be wrong.

Today, at work I have read some posts that indicate its probably the AHCI that I enabled, when I get home I will try this of course - I thought it might be this but I am still confused and I went to bed last night and figured I'd try again this morning. I'm confused because I thought you only needed drivers for RAID, and I will not be doing RAID. So how would you install to AHCI if it is stuck on that progress bar? Another post I read said that I would need to install the RAID/AHCI drivers during install - except I don't see that there is any opportunity to do so, with XP yes its right at the beginning. With Vista am I missing something? Do I need to hit something when its copying files during that first step? Or should I even bother with AHCI? I don't have a floppy drive either so could I install the AHCI drivers via a USB flash drive? This is how I've flashed the BIOS on my Abit IP35 Pro

Please advise

 

[ChronoReverse]

Hmm, I wonder if you're running into that Intel storage driver bug. Try getting the latest driver (7.8) from the Abit or Intel site and making a driver disk. Load that driver during install.

 

[AMDZen]

I think maybe you didn't read my whole post. I only get to the progress bar, where exactly can I load drivers? Am I supposed to hit something on the very first step and it isn't listed?

I insert Disc, start computer, it does the usual start up stuff - then goes to "Press any button to boot from CD Drive" I hit a button - the next thing that comes up is a screen that says "Windows is loading files" or something like that, with a gray bar along the bottom - that completes from left to right. The next thing that comes up is the startup graph with an 3 orange dots going left to right inside of a bar (this is what you see when you startup Vista normally) with Microsoft corporation underneath it. Thats it, it just keeps going left to right, I waited 30 minutes and it just kept going left to right. No freezes or anything

Unless you can load drivers by hitting something somewhere that I'm missing - i don't even get to the point where I can load drivers

 

[ChronoReverse]

Ah, I misunderstood. For some reason (probably due to me being stupid) I thought that was after Vista installed and was trying to boot for the first time.


Is your DVD drive an SATA one?

 

[AMDZen]

No its IDE, however I set it to AHCI, maybe thats the issue eh? I didn't even think of that, I was thinking it was because I set my HDD's as AHCI. But now that I think about it I think I set two things to AHCI which were IDE, one being an option in bios that read "SATA" and the other might have been my optical drives.

Could this be my problem? That would be awesome if it is, thats the first thing I'll try when I get home tonight. I don't think I thought of this simply because it still finds the ROM drives via the JMicron screen and boots the DVD fine.

The other thing I think it could be is that I bought a 750 GB drive and installed it last night as well, the drive isn't formatted (of course) and at the beginning when its reading my HDD's it stutters on this one. When it was set to IDE in BIOS the first screen at startup would think for litterally 30 seconds before it found it. It takes 1 second to find the first 4 drives and then 30 to find the 750. And When its set to AHCI it does the same thing, finds the first 4 in no time and then thinks for 10 seconds or so and then it doesn't find the last HDD at all. I assumed this was because it wasn't formatted.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Even in AHCI mode, it should still detect a DVD drive properly. But I guess it can't hurt. Frankly, since it was able to boot the DVD at least partway, I'd suspect it would be something else. It probably won't hurt to have the secondary chipset (DVD) set to standard/IDE while the primary chipset (hard drives) set to AHCI.


As for your hard drive, have you tried to reseat the connectors? SATA connectors can come loose pretty easily sometimes (although the newer connectors are much better). Still, the fact the drive is taking so long to be detected is worrisome. I don't recall having that issue with my new 750GB (WD) drive.

 

[AMDZen]

It detects the drive in BIOS, when its set to IDE it does detect it eventually. But yea it does take forever. I'm thinking I got a bad drive, but I don't see how that explains this.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Well, only one thing to do. Try the flip to IDE and then try without the 750 drive =)

 

[AMDZen]

Thats the plan. I was pretty confident it was the AHCI but the more reading I do the more I wonder if my RAM is bad or something. Its brand new so that would suck

 

[ChronoReverse]

First thing I do with a new system is test the RAM. You don't need to install the OS to do that and it saves a lot grief

 

[AMDZen]

Anyone else have any ideas for when I get home?

 

[AMDZen]

OK so in case anyone cares, it seems to be that it was my 750GB HDD that held everything up. Unplugged it last night and installed Vista x64 flawlessly.