Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Janson — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:03:39 GMT

As an official MS Vista Beta tester I do feel your pain. Indeed I bugged this issue within the beta, and was told (won't fix) but did get good reason for it, which was along the lines of too late in the developemnt cycle.

Rather than boot to XP you can use the advanced tools in Vista (the recovery tools) from the install CD which allow you to used Bootpart to do the convert - but would the average user be able to do that - I'm guessing not.

Something I wonder about is have you looked at your DVD drive? Vista is quite particular about media and it may be you are getting dodgy reads. I note it sometimes hung at expanding files at between 1% and 24% thats not consistent and should be queried.

Roll on Vista SP1 I guess!

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

andypennell — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:00:22 GMT

Janson: Interesting, I did try my other DVD drive once, but my Dell can only boot from the first one and I couldn't face opening the case yet another time to swap them over.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Tim — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:47:23 GMT

"Vista cannot install to Dynamic discs (which is the default when you add a new drive to XP): switch them to Basic before attempting a Vista install"

I presume the Vista setup team know that Dynamic discs are something created by Microsoft software, right? :-)

I tried an install of Vista recently to try it out as a media center machine. I couldn't see any of the machines on my network, until I remembered I'd need to change the workgroup name.

I did that, and Vista told me that I would need to reboot in order for the workgroup name change to take effect.

Are. They. F-ing. Kidding. Me?

I checked my calendar - it is indeed 2007, and not 1998 as Vista seemed to think.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Stephen — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:10:33 GMT

Instead of opening the case to switch the DVD Drives you can just go into the Bios and Disable the first drive. Thats what I had to do because I have my CDRW in PATA0 and my DVDRW in PATA1 and i didnt want to open the case that a pain.

Have you tried doing an upgrade instead of a clean install?

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Phileosophos — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:23:43 GMT

I had a much better experience, largely because I gave it a completely fresh hard drive to sprawl across and disconnected all the other hard drives. If you're interested in the details--including the trick to getting the Vista boot loader integrated properly with your other OSes--check out the write-up:

http://www.geocities.com/phileosophos/tech/vista01_install.html

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Richard — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:30:29 GMT

You must be kidding. What was it, eight hours into an install ("I went to bed, woke up the next morning"), and not thinking about quitting the install?

And then, after *forty more hours*, you put in even more time trying to continue to install? And then you even continued to ruin a perfectly running box by applying a BIOS upgrade -- and getting a warranty replacement for that foolishness ...

Whatever your job at Microsoft may be, you're definitely not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

But then again, that's what I've come to expect from Microsoft.

Richard

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

andypennell — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:30:54 GMT

Richard: Hey, I was determined to install it, even if it did take two days. Call me what you like, but I didn't give up easily. In fact, crazy man that I am, I might try again with the 2nd DVD drive following the suggestion above.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Squiddy — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:56:32 GMT

Richard, posting a mindless uninformed post like the one you did doesn't make you the brightest bulb in the chandelier buddy.

I see nothing wrong with his approach. As he said, he persevered, which if anything should be admired.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Robert — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 07:34:38 GMT

That is so weird. I've never had problems installing Vista on my machine but then again, I only have one SATA drive and that's about it. Most likely if I install a second drive, I will start having problems with RAID.

What can you try?

- Try plugging in the drive into a different SATA port.

- Try changing the "Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode" - You have IDE, AHCI and RAID/IDE

- Try changing the IDE's mode to either Legacy or Native IDE

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Hugh — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 08:54:39 GMT

Yes you seem to be having major hardware compatibility issues of some sort as it seems to be having a *lot* of trouble seeing / writing to that second hard drive. Would suggest one of more (assuming you haven't tried it of course)

a) Trying "borowing" or swapping for another Vista CD

b) Trying the same CD on another machine

c) Trying the 32 bit version (not sure if you get both in the package

d) Unplugging your XP hard drive and installing to a unpartitioned SATA drive

I feel your pain and know what it is like to get 'locked' into the mode of "I will install this damn thing the way I want or one of will die ...".

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Rhenson — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:56:59 GMT

i think it was more a problem with dell than vista.

I've installed it on a lot of clients computers with no problems.

but one client had a dell and i had nothing but problem with the install.

I think the windows team is moving in the right direction with vista. and I really hope with sp1 most of the bugs are worked out.

but as much as I like Microsoft products I really don't think vista was ready for prime time.

I like vista but I can't wait for windows seven. the reason i say this is with all the new code in windows by the time seven comes out the windows team should have the kinks worked out of the code for the most part.

and vendors by that time should know how to write quality drivers for the new way windows runs.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Mark Morris — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:57:43 GMT

Thank you for pointing out the idiocy of the box design - I had equal problems and frustrations when first coming across this design, which now seems to apply across the Microsoft product line (though Expression Web is in a nice old-fashioned package) - and the sheer amount of plastic involved in this new design hardly seems environmentally friendly.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Steve F. — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:49:16 GMT

The box IS wierd.

It would've been much simpler had they put the little "how to open" diagram in WHITE, rather than dark orange.

Onto the installation issue: I did phone support (I worked for an outsourcer) for MS starting with win95, and ending with WinXP (homoe and pro).

I think Hugh is on the right track here to suspect the optical drive, or the Vista CD.

One thing, if you are installing from within XP so as to set up a dual-boot config, you might want to try to copy the Vista install files to the hard drive (making a "flat directory"), and just run setup directly from the HDD. That bypasses any funkiness with the DVD, and eliminates having to open up the case to swap cables.

And if it fails to copy with either drive, then that's your problem. :)

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Michel Desangles — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:59:40 GMT

Richard / Alain : This is exactly why you'll never be good programmers or good medics (or good whatever).

If Andy had not persevered, he would not have arrived at his conclusions, which means WE wouldn't have them served on a plate.

Andy is a living god in the art of diagnosis (remember a few years back when he tried to add more RAM to his wife's PDA), which requires an enormous amount of patience, the nerve to withstand the trial-and-error process, the capability to react to seemingly unconnected events... and he is kind enough to share his conclusions with us. Why complain?

I wouldn't like to be a patient with you two as doctors: "Oh mate, you're ill, curing you would involve a lot of boring steps and way too much patience. Better die right now."

Thanks Andy for everything.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

sumeet — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:07:36 GMT

on the issue of box design, i too struggled however my 9 year old licked it in 15 sec flat !

what DELL model do you have? C521?

mcepat — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:38:22 GMT

I just went through Vista 64 hell myself but I am back and live to tell about it.

Things I learned

BIOS: DELL has a flaky BIOS if its the C521 I believe thye pulled it.

SATA drive and controller: if you have a nvidia sata interegated controller do not let windows update install newest they have the wrong time stamp and will BSOD vista, Instead go to nvidia and download the drivers for nforce.

DVD drive: I could not install my dvd drive without getting a BSOD with 4GB installed, I had to drop it down to 2GB install and then add the memory back

memory: know Vista issue with over 3GB memory, there is a patch available.

I believe most of your issues were sata drivers, just go to the manufacturer and do not rely on the windows drivers

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

andypennell — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:57:03 GMT

Thanks mcepat. I have a Dell Precision 370 (which has an Intel chipset). I do have a work-around for my problem which I will post soon.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Jasper — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:01:53 GMT

Hi,

This is very interesting, especially when I compare your hell with my installation of Vista Ultimate... I just popped in the DVD while beeing in XP, the PC rebooted after copying all the files and after about 20mins installation was done.

I just can't believe you even tried installing Vista Ultimate on a classic PC like yours. Ultimate just won't run any good on a machine like that. Get some processor power, gigs of DDR2 ram and a big graphics processor...

Vista-Installation als persnliche Hlle

Teamzille.de — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:00:14 GMT

Die Installation von Windows Vista ist nicht immer ganz einfach. Bevor man mit dem Betriebssystem arbeiten kann, sind unter Umstnden einige Softwareupdates und vielleicht auch andere bzw. neue Hardware ntig. Ein Erfahrungsbericht von Andy Penell zeigt

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Aram — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:18:27 GMT

I had no problems with installing Vista. I have a Dell Dimension 5150, upgraded ram (3gig) and 3 HD's.

No problems at all. It runs great.

(I'm running on Vista Ultimate Edition)

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

typing the text into the textbox — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 04:16:33 GMT

The problem is solved by now, as Andy changed his SATA Operation and change it from RAID Automatic/AHCI to Combo mode.

The whole story is described here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2007/06/21/installing-vista-my-personal-hell.aspx

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

installedvista — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 07:59:04 GMT

I had no problem at all, I have a Dell Optiplex GX100

256MB RAM

2 IDE HDDs

700MHz CPU

8MB graphics card

Vista installed and runs perfectly, I just had to turn off indexing because I got sick of it beating the crap out of my hard drive.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

mswanson — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:36:41 GMT

Sounds *a lot* like the issues I had with some Dell machines and Vista installs awhile back. Check this out: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-025783.htm

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Aaron Seet — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:49:48 GMT

my experience: SATA DVD drive and 4GB RAM are bickering neighbours in a x64 Windows Vista setup.

http://icelava.net/forums/thread/1498.aspx

Vista Compatibility: My Personal List

Andy Pennell's Blog — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:39:01 GMT

Following the travails of my Vista install at home (and subsequent success ), I will be listing my success

In reply to Richard

Simon — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:01:41 GMT

Okay...Richard, your comment regarding Andy's approach to installing Vista was very rude. He had never installed Vista before, how was he to know? You are an arrogant person. Probably don't even know much about computers yourself.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

shadow_tj — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:54:11 GMT

ok everyone is talking about it..

And i`m realy looking right now for 45minutes at the almost "Famous 'Expanding Files'" ...

When you read the forums, and ask people, its almost as famous as the big "Fatal Exception X001" or dumping phisical memmory dumps.

What means Expanding Files ..

i know the terms, Compressing and Extracting but expanding ??? blowing up files.. ???

nice but new years day was yesterday.

I got a Dual Xeon 3ghz Nacona.

Hyperthreading on. 3x 500gb Wd 16mb harddisk.

So why its taking this long .. and what is it doing. ????

Compressing 200gb small files with Rar takes about 4 hours.. ( Does that for making backups ).

This vista install is probably taking lots more :(

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

jkrutz — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:46:11 GMT

I had an entirely different experience, which suprised me considering the horror stories I've read. I'm running a dell Inspiron 6000 with a Pentium M 1.67, 1 gb of ddr, and a 64 meg ATI mobility graphics...My installation of Vista Ultimate 32bit took all of 25 min from loading the dvd to logging on after install. I had the same experience on 3 separate occasions on the same system (brief periods of Linux installs in between). I personally love Vista. Other than the file copy lag in vista, its runs much quicker than it ever did with XP, and that is saying something. I suppose every config is yields different results. I considered trying Vista on my old Dell optiplex, though I don't think it could handle it with only 512 ram. I'll stick with xp and linux on that one.

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Ron — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:42:27 GMT

I, also a Former Vista Beta tester, having tried out vista in both x86 and x64 forms before settling on x64 for myself. On any given machine in any form, Vista is either a breeze to install or a nightmare. Having a computer shop, I can tell you it doesnt even matter if it is an older machine or a brand new one. Two identical machines and one has problems and another doesnt. After months of trying to make heads or tails, I am of the opinion any little thing not perfect within the computer will cause problems. When I say any little thing, I mean the power supply is putting out a hair too much or too little voltage, memory not perfectly matched if hyperthreading, video cards not perfectly matched if using SLI, a DVD drive that doesnt read consistantly at a given speed, or anything that is slightly off. It can be anything, but in reality it is probably a combimation of tiny things XP would never notice.

Now, with this out, I have to say I love Vista! When it runs, it is a dream! The biggest problems I have actually found on running Vista are 1)if the power is interupted and you dont have a battery backup AND you had anything actually working at the moment, you have about a 50% chance of having to use the disk to do a startup repair (machine at idle is much less likely, maybe 5%, to have a problem), 2)the page file system has problems causing faults if you push your machine, 3)Vista memory diagnostics will out and out lie and even more unfortunately it treats it as if the problem really exists even though every other test you can use claims the memory is fine!

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

David — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:58:19 GMT

Remove any SATA Optical Drive!

I recently spent all weekend installing Vista SP1 x64 and then formatting and reinstalling to find out that an SATA Optical drive, on install, is expected to be a Hard drive by Vista. That is continued up to the point you install the Intel Matrix storage Drivers *(on a succesful installation), then and only then, should you plug your SATA optical drive back in.

I say succesfull installation because until the Intel matrix storage driver and/or other drivers are manually installed after an update, the SATA optical drive is triggered for read every couple of seconds by the OS. you'll damage a disc trying to get it out of the drive tray as every time you hit eject the OS tries to read the disc and pulls the drive tray closed before you can snag the disk.

What needs to happen is that Microsoft needs to provide some pre driver for installing Windows Vista with an SATA optical drive, so that it doesn't think the Optical drive is a Hard drive and continually index it over and over and over, wether a disc is inserted or not.

If you have an ATA Optical Drive on an IDE motherboard conector, GREAT, just make sure any SATA optical drive is not plugged in until after you get drivers for the Motherboard updated!

re: Installing Vista: My Personal Hell

Ben — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:41:20 GMT

Had a similar experience. Swapped out the hard drive (160 GB Velociraptor) for an identical drive fixed it. No errors, just was going to take several days to install.