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Vista Installation Nightmare!

cytoSiN

cytoSiN

Platinum Member
Hi all.

I've been trying to install vista ultimate 64 on my new rig (no OS installed yet). The first time I booted from the dvd, it went right into the install sequence, but when it asked me to choose a drive to install to, it didn't like my drives and suggested that I go into the bios to check the disk controller. So I rebooted and did that, and made sure everything was working as it should. Then I saved and rebooted, and since then I can't get past the stupid "Windows is Loading Files" screen. The system either reboots before the bar fills up, or the bar fills up and I get a "Windows Boot Manager" error screen, which states the following:

File: \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe

Status: 0xc0000221

Info: The file is possibly corrupt. Its header checksum does not match the computed checksum.

I've got no idea what this means, or how to fix it. I've triple-checked all my hardware (plugs, etc), and I've tried booting with certain drives plugged in or out. I have an IDE dvd drive I can try to boot from, but not sure if this will help.

My config:
Q6600
IP35
2GB ram (waiting to run windows update before installing the other 2GB)
8800GTS
320GB 7200.10 (no RAID)
500GB Samsung (no RAID)

Everything seems to be working on the hardware end...any suggestions? Thanks for the help!
 
Is your DVD drive on SATA? If the installer didn't see your drives in its list, it might be because it requires some form of SATA drivers for the HDDs. If possible, you should try to put the SATA HDDs into IDE mode (via BIOS) and see if that helps any.
 
The SATA drives were in IDE mode by default (I think?)...I tried ACHI too, and same results. When I first loaded up and Windows said the drives were not ready for installation, it still recognized, formatted, and partitioned them. But still said I needed to enable the disk controller in the bios. Any ideas what that means?

The DVD drive I'm using for the installation is SATA, but all of my drives (2 SATA HDDs, and 1 IDE DVD drive) all show up when the system posts.

Am I missing something? Is the installation DVD corrupt?

🙁

Thanks.
 
Try loading Vista from the IDE DVD, and also have the drivers ready on a thumb drive for your disk controllers, just to be sure. That's a very new chipset, but it should be included in Vista, although anything's possible.
 
Originally posted by: djnes
Try loading Vista from the IDE DVD, and also have the drivers ready on a thumb drive for your disk controllers, just to be sure. That's a very new chipset, but it should be included in Vista, although anything's possible.
Click to expand...

I'll try the IDE drive when I get home tonight. I think I have the drivers ready on CD for the disk controllers, but I can transfer to a thumb drive if necessary using another machine. I've seen others using basically the same set up I'm using with Vista 64 with no problems...

 
Your symptoms sound familiar. I'm not naive enough to believe that all things have a single cause, or that all causes have single effects, so a coincidence of symptoms is no assurance.

But did you check your memory with MEMTEST86 or a similar non-windows self-booting program?

I last had your problem installing XP Pro on a socket 478 hardware configuration. The Corsair RAM modules would work at DDR333, but did not work at DDR400, and we were able to install the OS with the degraded RAM-speed setting. I found occasion to reinstall the OS since we'd added nothing more than the chipset and VGA drivers, so after Corsair replaced the modules with a kit that could be configured as DDR400 passing MEMTEST86, we were able to go through the XP Pro install effortlessly.
 
Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
Your symptoms sound familiar. I'm not naive enough to believe that all things have a single cause, or that all causes have single effects, so a coincidence of symptoms is no assurance.

But did you check your memory with MEMTEST86 or a similar non-windows self-booting program?

I last had your problem installing XP Pro on a socket 478 hardware configuration. The Corsair RAM modules would work at DDR333, but did not work at DDR400, and we were able to install the OS with the degraded RAM-speed setting. I found occasion to reinstall the OS since we'd added nothing more than the chipset and VGA drivers, so after Corsair replaced the modules with a kit that could be configured as DDR400 passing MEMTEST86, we were able to go through the XP Pro install effortlessly.
Click to expand...

I haven't run such a program (just made a memtest86 boot cd so I'll try it when I get home), but the POST shows the proper amount of RAM, and the BIOS seems to see it too. Also, I have 2x2GB sticks (only using one at a time until I can install vista and run windows update), and I tried this with both and had the same result, and it seems unlikely that Mushkin shipped me two crappy sticks. Anything's possible though. I'm thinking it's an issue with the DVD drive I'm using or the fact that I rebooted in the middle of the previous install and changed the settings and now it doesn't like them, but who knows.

Originally posted by: cytoSiN
The first time I booted from the dvd, it went right into the install sequence, but when it asked me to choose a drive to install to, it didn't like my drives and suggested that I go into the bios to check the disk controller. So I rebooted and did that, and made sure everything was working as it should. Then I saved and rebooted, and since then I can't get past the stupid "Windows is Loading Files" screen.
Click to expand...

The thing that I really don't understand is how it *worked* the first time (I use the term loosely since it clearly didn't like my disk controller), but then it won't work at all now...should I just reset the CMOS and start over again with the disk-controller drivers at the ready?

Thanks for the advice.
 
Interesting, I would venture to guess that Vista has written some boot info to your drives and is corrupt. Try a 3rd party disk format utility, (usually free or dowloadable bootable utility from your disk manufactures web site) reformat and partition with that to remove what ever Vista has written.

Then try again.

GL

:beer:
 
Well I tried a bunch of things all at once and it worked. 😀

1. unplugged the second disk (which revealed a broken SATA connection header, which is annoying but 5/6 is ok for now)

2. formatted the other drive using bootable utility

3. removed the IDE drive for now

4. reset CMOS and updated memory voltage on restart before booting from the vista CD

And voila. So one or all of those things made it work, and I was subsequently able to put everything back the way I wanted it, except for that broken SATA header on the mobo, which as I said is annoying but I'll live...might complain to ABIT, but we'll see.

Thanks everyone for the advice!
 
Hey Guys,

I am also getting this problem, and I am going to try this out...I'm installing Business 64 on:

Q6600
4GB DDR2800
eVGA 680i MoBo
SATA HDD
SATA DVDRW

Let me know if you know of any known issues that aren't covered here 🙂 Any help is way appreciated.
 
Hey guys - quick update.

I pulled two gigs of RAM out, but kept everything else the same. It *seems* to be working...we'll have to see 🙂

If it does...I'm completely flummoxed. Heck, I'm flummoxed no matter what when it comes to computers!
 
Well, Windows update killed my system...or so my friend says.

For some reason, the system installs fine on 2GB. I highly doubt any hardware is defective, meaning that I should either clear the BIOS or try to figure out if it's the install disc (which I doubt, I have used two!)

Any help/advice?
 
Okay, my system is currently up and running on 2GB, and I'm going to wait a bit to put the other 2GB into the system. Does anyone know of any reason that this would mess things up?
 
Originally posted by: teclis1023
Okay, my system is currently up and running on 2GB, and I'm going to wait a bit to put the other 2GB into the system. Does anyone know of any reason that this would mess things up?
Click to expand...

There is a known bug installing V64 on certain motherboards with 4gig. The workaround is to install with 2gig and once you have fininshed all the Windows Updates you will be patched and should be able to install the other 2gig.
 
Hey bsobel, thanks! I did get it up and running with 2GB, and currently I'm using the Updater to get myself up to speed.

Here's my current 'priority problems'

I can't seem to get either the nVidia chipset drives or the nVidia video drivers to install. I'm getting error messages and then the files are corrupting.

Any ideas? I've been google searching and forum searching, but so far I've not found a thing 🙁
 
Just for reference, here's the video drivers error output:
Error Code: -5009 : 0x80070002
Error Information:
>Ctor\ObjectWrapper.cpp (389)
>Kernel\Component.cpp (1161)
>Kernel\CABFile.cpp (384)
>SetupDLL\SetupDLL.cpp (1655)
PAPP:NVIDIA Display Drivers
PVENDOR:NVIDIA Corporation (http://www.nvidia.com/)
PGUID:EFB7D050-CAD2-11D4-B34D-00105A1C23DD
$9.1.0.429
@Windows (6000) IE 7.0.6000.16386

And here's the chipset error output:
Error Code: -5003 : 0xffffec75
Error Information:
>SetupNew\SetupDLL.cpp (711)
pAPP:NVIDIA Windows nForce Drivers
PVENDOR:NVIDIA Corporation
PGUID:EFB7D050-CAD2-11D4-B34D-00105A1C23DD
$12.0.0.49974
@Windows (6000) IE 7.0.6000.16386
 
Hey BSobel,

LOL yeah, I'm definitely installing the 64-bit drivers. Here's my background:

Had Vista 32bit on the system with 4GB of RAM. Worked well for the most part, and I had no real issues. I put x64 on it when my trial ran out. I purchased a key and decided to go with the x64 because I wanted all of my RAM to be utilized by the system

I could not, for the life of me, install Vista x64 with 4GB (as you already know). Now it's up and running with 2GB. I'm having a problem installing several of the Windows Updates, and none of the drivers seem to be responsive.

Should I just bump back to 32-bit? I'm not particularly invested in 64-bit, but I figured I might as well...
 
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