Vista Home Premium Install Hangs At Completing. (Clean Install)

[Serges2K]

My system setup:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
XFX PVT71PUDP3 GeForce 7900GS 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported EXTREME Video Card
OCZ S.O.E 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) {TWO OF THESE}
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology Black IDE Model SH-S182M

I put up the whole entire name of the parts from Newegg just to make sure I did not foget anything like model # incase you guys need it. Anyways on to the problem. Everything goes good all the way up to the Completing Installation part. It will hang there forever. I've tried a few times, sometimes it would just hang there forever until I reboot it and it gives me the usual error you all are used to hearing about about not being installed properly, or it will randomly restart on its own and give the same error. I have searched and searched and searched but I can't seem to find anything that helps. I've tried messing with the BIOS like instructed from some other help sites but I do not have much experience in the BIOS so maybe I'm missing a setting I need to change? If someone that knows about this motherboard can tell me the steps on what I should change and how to get there I would greatly appreciate it and try it out. My computer has no floppy drive just so you guys know. Also I'm not sure what version of BIOS I have but I know I have to press the Delete key to enter it if that helps any.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and if there is any more information you guys need please ask and I will try my best.

I've heard but do not know if it is possible but can you update the BIOS via a USB drive as opposed to a Floppy?

I borrowed this fix from another posting and it worked for me! I tried
for 3 days to fix this issue until I found this. I was using a Dell
Inspiron 1720. The drivers on Dell's site gave me what I needed during
the install process. I do not know how originally posted the fix below
but they are a life saver!

-------------------------------------------
REAL SOLUTION FOUND

Your solution was an inventive one, however understanding why the error
is happening might shed some light.

The problem is caused because you need to load your correct sata diver
during the installation proccess. But there is a glitch here that traps
alot of people:

After you load the driver from the setup, Vista continues to install,
but later it needs to go back to the installation disk to get the
drivers again (for whatever reason), it will *NOT* prompt you when it
tries to do this, instead it just hangs, especially because people load
the driver from the same DVDROM that they are loading Vista from.

After Vista copies files and reboots, put the Driver disk back in the
DVDROM and during the "Completing Installation" It will search it
automatically and get the drivers and continue with the install.

If you used a floppy (for whatever reason) for the drivers, after
rebooting from the initial coping files part, put the floppy back in.

It is regrettable that MS doesn't handle this better, but alas that is
the case. Follow this and your error will disapear.

I have seen many posts about this on the internet and people suggesting
all sorts of crazy solutions. I feel sorry for the people that have
tried them all and have become so frustrated at Vista over such an easy
(yet unintuitive) resolution.

[rexx]

It took me just about a week to find the solution to this installation issue.
DeHart, your post on the sata driver , did help, but what really did it for me was the info. @ the below link . Not sure about the clean installation but for those upgrading be sure to visit this link :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946078

thanks for the help, but i tried it on my gateway laptop and it didn't
work. i don't know if am doing it wrong but as soon as it reboots i took
the Disk out and waited for it to show the completing installation and
put the Disk back in but it still didn't complete the installation.
could you help me out

[kcarmack]

I worked on this one for about a week. for those still supporting this aging machine, take a look:


My buddy has a Dell XPS410/Dimension 9200 with Vista 32-bit which was giving a variety of problems, including startup errors and general instability, as Vista has a tendency to do. I tried several fixes, including an in-place upgrade of Vista and a clean install on the existing Vista partition (you know, the one where the existing Windows folder & profile are moved to Windows.old). In both scenarios, the installation stalled out after the reboot around the 67% mark, during Completing Installation. The system hung, the pointer wouldn’t move, fans shut down and the HDD stopped spinning.

System config:
Dell XPS410/Dimension 9200
Mobo: Dell E210882
Chipset: Intel P965/G965
Intel 82801 HH I/O controller
CPU: Intel Core 2 E6300 1.86GHz

A quick scan of the internet revealed that this is a known issue with this particular motherboard/chipset/onboard RAID controller. I tried a variety of install strategies, all including the Load Drivers option early in the install process. I also tried installing Windows 7 and that hung at the same place, so the problem was not a Vista issue.

The problem seemed to be with the drivers for the RAID controller.

After endless web searches and multiple failed install attempts, it finally worked. Here are the steps:

1. Flashed BIOS to 2.5.3
2. Start off with clean hard drive if possible (used WD Data Lifeguard to zero out an existing hard drive)
3. Connected the HDD to SATA port 3 on the controller hub and the DVD to port 4 (suggested on Intel’s site: http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-025783.htm) .
4. BIOS: set Autodetect ATA/SATA
5. Start Windows 7 (or Vista) installation
6. Load Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers (version 7.5 or later) for 82801HH AND ICH8R from USB thumb drive (leave it in the USB port throughout the install process)
7. Allow OS install to continue through reboot
8. CRITICAL: On reboot just before Completing Installation, change BIOS: SATA
9. Also, change boot sequence to actual HDD (in my case, Maxtor) – you may have to save/exit BIOS setup, let the reboot start and enter BIOS a second time to make the actual hard drive show up in the boot sequence.

If you’re having this same problem, I hope this saves you some pain & frustration.