Vista intall taking forever 1

[cranebill]

hi.

i rebuilt my machine a few months ago. installed a legit full copy of vista. ran fine til yesterday. I went to play a game and the machine froze. This is the first time is has frozen in quite a while. I rebooted yesterday and it would not reboot. Tried last known config, safe mode, and going back a couple days to a different restore point. Nothing. So i decided to wipe it clean. Formatted drive last night. Trying to install as we speak.. going on 5 hours now. It is going through "recommended setting but running very very slow...

Any ideas?

 

[linney]

The hard drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software that is bootable and will thoroughly check the condition of your hard drive.


You can also run the Mem Test program from the Startup Repair options when you boot from the DVD.

http://www.memtest86.com/

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

 

[BadBigBen]

I agree with Linney, in that it sounds like there is a hardware fault there somewhere...

most likely it is HDD or RAM related, as both can cause freezing...

Linney pointed you towards the memtester apps, here is a comprehensive list of HDD diag tools:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[cranebill]

I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostics and put them on another machine, connected the hd and it tested fine with both the extended test and the writing zeros test. Hard drive is blank and unpartitioned now, trying again. RAM was tested through another diagnostic yesterday, I forgot to mention that.

 

[linney]

The other thing to look at is the install media itself and the drive that is reading the install media. Even worse is the possibility of the Motherboard or Processor is dying?

Have you got an old XP that you could try and install on that machine to see if that goes in?

Another thing you could try is to detach any unnecessary hardware from the machine prior to installing Vista.

The bottom line is that a clean install of Vista should complete within about 30 minutes. Sometimes an upgrade install may take up to a couple of hours.

 

[cranebill]

Well today tried again, still slow... and now I got a bsod. I was a little ticked and shut it down but i got a page in a nonpaged fault area on asa.sys....

or something close to that anyway. This is also on a new hd that i purchased this morning.

 

[BadBigBen]

I was a little ticked and shut it down but i got a page in a nonpaged fault area on asa.sys

if it is not RAM (which I am still leaning towards, seeing that the drive checked out ok, and this happened with the new drive), then it is the install media, either it is a burned copy, if it is then reburn at the SLOWEST speed possible, or if it is an original then it has scratches or fingerprints (dirty), etc. that is hampering things...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[cranebill]

New disc, opened when i rebuilt the machine and not used since.

I wonder. I have one of those HD docking stations. I do not have another desktop. Think i could dual boot a laptop using that docking station... then put the new copy on the docking station. Reinstall in the desktop and maybe perform a repair?

 

[cranebill]

Also i took out on of the two sticks of ram

 

[linney]

Have you tried your own suggestion of installing onto the (new) hard drive via another machine to see if it works or allows a repair install or upgrade on the original machine? You will have to sort out the boot entries on the other now dual booting machine too.

Have you looked at any Bios Update, or resetting the Bios to any Safe Defaults?

Does something like BartPE run on this machine?

BartPE (a mini XP self contained on a bootable CD and run from CD).

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

[cranebill]

Sorta...

I found this page that helps setup a flash drive to be bootable to run the setup:

http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=345

so i followed this then booted up using flash drive. Part way through the install process said it couldnt write and aborted the process so i restarted the install (without restarting the machine, i hit the button on screen to restart) it said it didnt load drivers. So I browsed and it could not find them on the flash drive nor c drive so i put the cd back in and it failed again.

I am going to try using the above link again but use the HD instead of the flash drive. The HD is currently formatting.

If this dont work I have no idea.

As far as the BIOS goes i updated it three months ago when i built the machine. I have not added or taken anything out of it since then.

I will look into that link as I am not sure.

 

[cranebill]

After 12 hours of install... it worked however was running very poorly. I decided to just bite the bullet and go get a new mobo/cpu and ram. I spoke with a guy there and after telling him everything i had done and showed him a list of what I had that i wanted to upgrade from he said he was 80% sure it was the mobo as the one had was notorius for problems.

Installed both and loaded vista and windows 7 in about 45 min.

Only issue i have is I need a mobo with pci-express 2.0 for my vid card but i will go and deal with that in the morning.