Vista Installation stuck on "Completing Installation" step.

[Bad Dude]

I am having problem with installation Vista Ultimate. The problem occurs with 32 and 64 bit versions. Basically, when it gets to the final step, the "completing installation" it sits there forever, with 3 dots moving back a forth. The system does not crash but it just sits there.
System specs:
-Gigabyte 965P_S3
-E6300
-4X1GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM sticks.
-Seagate 320GB SATA 7200.10
-Sound blaster X-FI Extreme Music
-Kworld ATSC 110 digital TV tuner
-PCI US Robotics modem.
-Samsung SATA DVD burner.

Thanks.

 

[nova2]

i cant remember how the fresh install process goes, but with an upgrade

at some point you will come to this part:
8;48 "completing upgrade ..."
8;56 "completing upgrade (25%) ..."
9:02 41%
9:10 55%
9:12 ?? noticed it rebooted. when it came back it was at 64% (9;14)
9:17 75%
9:21 it rebooted again.
when it came back, it was done.


so i guess, for you, it says, 'completing installation ...'
and soon enough it should tell you how much has been completed via percentage.
obviously, it probably is taking much longer for you, or it is deadlocked.

perhaps someone here knows how to abort the install in such a way so that you can view the installation log.
the log helped me correct my problems when i was trying to do an upgrade.

 

[Bad Dude]

For some reason the final step takes forever and I still don't have Vista installed. This is suck.

 

[InlineFive]

I've only had this issue when using bad memory or when the memory is misconfigured. Is the system overclocked? Have you tried swapping sticks out?

 

[Noema]

Wasn't there an issue with Vista not installing on machines with 4GB of RAM or more?

I'd try removing two sticks, installing the OS and then putting the RAM back.

 

[Bad Dude]

Originally posted by: Noema
Wasn't there an issue with Vista not installing on machines with 4GB of RAM or more?

I'd try removing two sticks, installing the OS and then putting the RAM back.

I have removed 2 sticks then 1 stick and still the same problem. Don't know what it is but I don't have unlimited time to wait for the final step to finish.

Thanks.

 

[Bad Dude]

I found out the problem was not the RAM.
It was the AHCI controller enabled.
So I had to do the following:
1) Disable AHCI and native 0-3 controllers. So this runs IDE.
2) I then turn on the Jmicron controller and install the drivers for that.
3) Physically switch the OS drive to the Jmicron plug.
4) Enable the AHCI controller and native 0-3 controllers.
5) Install the Intel drivers for the AHCI controller.
6) Switch the drive back to the Intel onboard AHCI controller.

Everything works fine now.

The system finally works and shows 4GB of RAM now.

Now I want to use Windows 2003 Server to run my games since Vista does not work well with some of my old games. Which version of Windows Server 2003 will work with 4GB of RAM? Standard, Enterprise, Server 2003, R2?
Thanks.