[Alt Ctrl Delete]

Hi I recently got the Business version of Windows Vista to install on my
computer. I had Windows XP home edition before that. I decided to upgrade,
so I checked which programs would be compatible. All but 2, which I
uninstalled. One piece of hardwere had out of date drivers. I uninstalled
the ones I needed for vista, but it said I couldn't install them now because
I wasn't running Vista, so I decided to try that after it was installed.

My PC specification is:

Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 3800+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.4GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Hard Drive: 203 GB
Video Card: RADEON X800 GTO
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Sound Card: Realtek AC97 Audio

Ask me if you want to know anything else.

I installed Vista off the DVD. It worked fine up until the restart after it
had ticked off all the stages of the install. When it started booting this
time, the moniter displayed it's usual startup screen to start with (showing
the motherboards logo). After that it showed a screen which was black and
had white text which seemed to allow me to select the operating system I
wanted to use, vista was selected by default, a rollback version was also there. If I select windows vista, the next screen is also black with white text and is titled
"Windows Error Recover", this says that windows had previously encountered an
error and gives you a few options of how you want to start windows, e.g.
normal mode, safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, and lastknown good configuration. Safe mdoe won't work because it says the instillation can't continue in safe mode. So I have to choose Normal mode.

The next screen is the Windows vista loading screen. It just says "Windows
Corporation" and has a little loading bar.

After that is loaded it comes up with a blue screen which says how vista has
encoutered a serious error and needs to be shut down to prevent harm, it also
has lots more writing but it is hard to see because this screen only lasts
about 3 seconds and then the system just reboots and the process starts again.


Extra info

I did an upgrade rather than clean install
I'm pretty sure I did an overwright of my orgional windows
I have booted vista off the CD and tried a repair, which failed
I can only install over the origional vista with a clean install, but I have important files on my computer, so I'd much rather an alternative. If not I need a way of moving my files to a safe area of the disk, or a way of copying them to an external hardrive.
I can enter command promt when I boot from CD

Tell me if you want to know anything else

All help is much appreciated.

Thanks, Will

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Hey there Alt Ctrl Delete, welcome to Geeks To Go.

It sounds like a drivers problem, rather than asking what you removed what have you added. What are the programs you have loaded recently, for example the wrong version of Alcohol 120% does the exact same thing as the problems you are having. So let me know what you have loaded recently, then we can look up information on what files you must remove using command prompt.

But let me know the case.... Cool

[Spike]

Hey there Alt Ctrl Delete, welcome to Geeks To Go.

It sounds like a drivers problem, rather than asking what you removed what have you added. What are the programs you have loaded recently, for example the wrong version of Alcohol 120% does the exact same thing as the problems you are having. So let me know what you have loaded recently, then we can look up information on what files you must remove using command prompt.

But let me know the case.... Cool

[Alt Ctrl Delete]

Thanks.

Firstly what is alcohol 120%?

Secondly, why does it matter if I installed them recenly or slowly? Remember I have only just installed Vista, and havn't actually been on it yet.

But if you do need to know I havn't installed much recently except the Burning Crusade wow expansion. Other than that, nothing really within the last month from what I can remember.

If it was a driver problem could it be because of the out of date realtek sound drivers I had?

Really it was mainly just a huge amount of uninstalling I did just before I installed Vista.

Hope that helps.

Will

[BluePoet]

Any non-compatible driver that Vista does not have an on-board updated driver for can be a problem. I would suspect any onboard hardware, such as your soundcard, as a likely problem. Drivers for those are rarely released, depending on who manufactured your computer / motherboard. For example, Dell practically never releases updated audio drivers.

A couple things I would try:

(1) Go into your BIOS memory, disable all onboard non-essential hardware and try a fresh install of Vista (which will create a Windows.old directory and attempt the install again). Not sure if this works with an upgrade copy, though. I started fresh with a new system before crashing mine with the aforementioned Alcohol 120% after Vista was installed.

(2) If you are terrified of losing irreplaceable data, you might have to get a new HDD and attempt a clean install there. Then plug in your former HDD and copy over or import any compatible files that you need. An expensive option, but one I have had to resort to in the past (thanks, Roxio EZ-CD creator, circa 2000).

Good luck.

[Alt Ctrl Delete]

OK I got it working! But the problem was a clean install was the only possibility. I also couldn't enters the product key because it said I needed to be working on an existing version of windows.

So I decided to register once it was installed, however it said that my key was only for an upgrade. Now this really sucks because it's making me buy a new version of windows vista within 30 days. What the [bleep]? I tried the [bleep] upgrade and it didn't work

Do you think they could send me a new product key for full install or something?

Will

[BluePoet]

You could always try to contact Microsoft and try to explain the situation, but they may be hard to convince that you are not just trying to get the full version for less money.

Good luck.

[Alt Ctrl Delete]

Yeah I guess I'll have to try that. I would give my windows xp key as evidence, but it came pre installed. I'll give them a ring and see. And don't know how'd I'd begin going back to xp now.