[Newbie's Guide] Preventing Vista Installation Failure And Freeze-up On Certain Mobos

[nish_higher]

I've come across a lot of motherboards with the problem of freeze-ups during vista installation.mostly occurs when copying files is done and PC restarts for final installation phase but computer either freezes or remains in finalising state even for hours .restart and reinstall does not help.BIOS update is no use either
My experience is with P5N E SLi , M2N Sli Dlx and P5K-C.There might be many more out there so here is a common solution-
The main reasons are-
1.J micron SATA controller (or any other controller depending on the mobo)
2.Using 4gb or more ram on that motherboard and installing Vista 32bit
3.Faulty motherboard (P5N E SLi, in my case..) Such boards have faulty SATA controllers and Vista won't ever install (XP still works awesome)-- No solution for this one-Board needs replacement
4.A PCI Soundcard especiallly M-Audio,or any pro card-this MIGHT cause any error (it caused in M2N-Sli).remove it before installation

Before installing Vista- Download the OFFICIAL and latest version of your Sata controller drivers from Motherboard's support and if its a .zip file extract it to your hdd\pen drive\cd

1.Use 1 or 2 gb ram to install vista
2.Boot into BIOS (del key) and go to motherboard's advanced options>onbord device config> Disable your SATA controller
3.Go to Advanced Options>PCI Pnp > Disable PnP Os---this will help if your keyboard does not work during installation,mine didn't
4.Save settings,boot into vista installation
5.At the "Where do you want to install windows" screen Click on "Load Driver"
6.Click browse
7.Browse to the SATA controller folder>Drivers and choose your platform (64bit/32bit) ,click OK
8.Uncheck the "Hide drivers that are...." box.u will see a list of drivers
9.Click next , it will install the drivers itself
10.Install vista
11.After installation completes u can use as much ram as u want (after updating Vista),depending upon the OS,you can now enable sata controller from the bios

Some pics-

[phreak0ut]

Thanks for sharing the info!

[Gigacore]

nice tutorial, thanks!

[The Conqueror]

very useful, thanks

Ok will help me as I will be for the first time installing Vista in my PC.

Thanks for the info

[evewin89]

thanks 4 sharing.

[topgear]

Thanks