[mhilliard_13]

Prior to last night, I had Windows XP Sp3 running extremely fine on my wonderful dv8000 custom built laptop. I decided to acquire a copy of Windows Vista, and have since attempted to "upgrade" to Vista; note that first, due to my fear, I custom installed Vista onto my second hard drive. (I have two hard drive on my laptop. The Original, which will be referred to as HDD 1 herein, originally contained the Windows XP OS, as well as my accumulated programs and files. The other hard drive, which will be referred to as HDD 2 was utilized to install the Vista OS onto.)

Everything installed fine onto the second hard drive, but I had neglected to take into consideration that I would not be able to utilize many of my programs installed on HDD 1 due to the fact that they were tied to my XP Installation, and on a separate OS. [It's [i]necessary[/i] to reinstall ALL applications when installing a fresh copy of the Vista OS on a new harddrive, in my case, HDD 2]

The problem arrises, in the sense that I have since opted to *again* install the Vista OS, but this time using the "upgrade" feature, thus installing it "on top of / replacing" the Windows XP OS on my HDD 1.

The installation went extremely well, that is until after the last step of the installation. Once everything had been completed, files copied, extracted, etc, my laptop restarted [completion stage] and little did I know that a BLACK SCREEN would show up along with my mouse. This is the only thing that is visible after the restart.

windows restarted > boot screen shows > bar moves > blackscreen w/ mouse

I am unsure as to what I should do, as I am unable to complete the installation [to my knowledge.]

As of now, I am booting through my HDD 2 Vista Installation, which successfully completed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! School starts Monday. Ahh!

Edited by mhilliard_13, 24 August 2008 - 06:51 AM.

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Hi there,

Have you tried running a repair install with the Vista disc?

I have a feeling you'll get better help in the Vista forum, I'll alert a mod to move this thread.

Troy

[Troy]

Hi there,

Have you tried running a repair install with the Vista disc?

I have a feeling you'll get better help in the Vista forum, I'll alert a mod to move this thread.

Troy

[mhilliard_13]

Hi there,

Have you tried running a repair install with the Vista disc?

I have a feeling you'll get better help in the Vista forum, I'll alert a mod to move this thread.

Troy

Well actually, I haven't tried a repair as it's an upgrade from Windows XP Sp3.

What are your current suggestions for me to do? I don't want to loose my programs & settings on my C Drive.

Edited by mhilliard_13, 24 August 2008 - 07:01 PM.

[stupidhomer]

use the vista your on now to copy all you data onto its own hard disk, then format the one with the bad vista on, then install XP onto the hard drive again, (or vista but vista may die on you and you lose everything again)

[mhilliard_13]

use the vista your on now to copy all you data onto its own hard disk, then format the one with the bad vista on, then install XP onto the hard drive again, (or vista but vista may die on you and you lose everything again)

IF I use the Vista on my HDD 2, to copy the files from HDD 1, which hasn't completed the Vista installation, what benefit will it provide? I'm aware that I would have documents, pictures, and musics, but would it transfer my programs? I'm afraid that the programs will yet again, still have to be reinstalled on the HDD1, which is currently not completing the Vista Installation.

I must, however, note that I can still "reverse the Vista installation," without having to reinstall XP on HDD 1. What's your advice? I really desire to be able to update to Vista, without having to go through a whole bunch of problems. What do you think is my best choice?

Thanks in advance!

[stupidhomer]

Just get rid of vista, it only works well with systems that you buy with it preinstalled or are very new and have high quality components.

Edited by stupidhomer, 30 August 2008 - 09:34 AM.

[stupidhomer]

I have it myself on my laptop and it is quite buggy, and slow, probably because my laptop only has 512mb of ram though

Edited by stupidhomer, 30 August 2008 - 09:35 AM.

[mhilliard_13]

Well, okay. But I have Duo Centrino Intel, nVidia 7600, 2gb RAM, T2600 @ 2.16 Ghz, and and two 111 GB hard drives.

[stupidhomer]

XP is still supported till 2014, at 2014 thats when you should install vista, or get yourself a good router firewall with NAT and a good personal firewall and keep xp but only do that in 2014 when they stop giving updates

Edited by stupidhomer, 25 August 2008 - 04:47 PM.

[mhilliard_13]

XP is still supported till 2014, at 2014 thats when you should install vista, or get yourself a good router firewall with NAT and a good personal firewall and keep xp but only do that in 2014 when they stop giving updates

Oh, apparently I was not aware that they would continue giving updates to XP until 2014. Thank you for the update. In that case, I will keep XP Media Center SP3 on my Primary HDD and Vista OS on my secondary. Thanks once again!

However, just as a note to make me fully aware, what do you think could be the issue causing the stall after the "completing installation stage"? Everything went perfectly well through the update, until it restarted after the "completing installation stage."

[stupidhomer]

Upgrading can be bad, its safer to just not upgrade unless its necessary.

Edited by stupidhomer, 30 August 2008 - 09:30 AM.

[Troy]

just get rid of vista, it only works with systems that you buy with it preinstalled

This is not true. I have installed it on many machines and it runs without problems.

You just need to do the research first - are all the hardware components compatible (can you find Vista drivers on the manufacturer's website first)? Are all the programs compatible?

The last time I upgraded a computer to Vista, I couldn't find the drivers for the TV Tuner Card, but the client said he never used it anyway, so I just removed the card and installed Vista. It worked great.

Cheers

Troy

[mhilliard_13]

Is there some kind of log I could do so that you could tell me what isn't compatible, or what's causing the hang up? I know it worked fine on my second hard drive, but on my primary hard drive, the one with windows xp media center, it stalled after "completing installation" stage..

:/

Edit: Attached hereto is the information / summary from the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, for your review.

Attached Files

•  System_details_upgrade_advisor_.doc   82.5KB   29 downloads

Edited by mhilliard_13, 26 August 2008 - 06:03 PM.

[stupidhomer]

Just try not to upgrade until you know how to fix that problem.

Edited by stupidhomer, 30 August 2008 - 09:32 AM.