Pavilion a1777c Aborted Vista Clean Install

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is great news, Grant.

Glad you got it to work.

So, it seems that when the controller was set to RAID, Vista may have been looking for a RAID driver which it didn't have in its database, so the installation failed.

I didn't even think about that because I thought Vista had the driver included.

IDE is the basic controller setting which most older operating systems like Windows 2000, XP and Vista install on without the need of adding special drivers.

The bad news is that IDE being the basic controller setting, is not the best controller setting for hard drive performance.

On that model, with a single drive, you would want the controller set to AHCI, so that the hard drive can take advantage of Native Command Queuing, which is not available in IDE mode.

This link explains what Native Command Queuing is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Command_Queuing

Should you want to change the controller to RAID or AHCI (but with a single HDD, I recommend AHCI), I have zipped up and attached the 32 bit storage drivers that Vista apparently needs below.

Here is how you load the drivers when installing Vista...

Unzip and Extract (copy) the files onto a usb flash drive without any folders.

With the flash drive and the Vista installation media the machine, boot from the Vista installation media.

After you select the install now option, select the Drive Options - Advanced menu, then select the Load Driver option.

You should now see the storage driver files listed.

If you check the box, it will only include the compatible driver.

Follow the prompts and Vista should install.

I can't guarantee you that was the issue, but I'm pretty sure it was.

I also believe that you should give yourself the solution, as the info I provided was not the reason the installation failed.

You deserve the credit.

[GHagen]

Hmm. I'm a bit paranoid about going back and doing it all over again, considering the hassle of getting one good installation up to this point.

But, I'll review the description of Native Command Queuing and decide whether the long term benefits out-weigh the additional short term effort. I really haven't done anything with it since the install except Activation (phone) and installing SP2. I wrote down the response code given by the automated phone service, so unless switching controllers alters the activation code put out by the computer, I could just type in the same response code and have it reactivated.

A few questions:

When installing the AHCI driver before Vista begins to install, does the installation of the driver automatically reset the BIOS to use AHCI at that point over the previous choice of IED, or do I have to reset the SATA Options in the BIOS to AHCI first, before I boot from the Vista disk and install the AHCI driver?

When you say, "Unzip and Extract (copy) the files onto a usb flash drive without any folders," does this mean that the unzipped driver files can't be contained in a folder, or that the usb drive itself can't contain any folders, period (so pretty much it would need to be empty but for the driver files).

I suppose that if I go that route and for whatever reason Vista aborts again, I can go back and reinstall under IDE and not be any worse off than I am currenty. Unless the moon is in the Seventh House of Aquarius, or something, at the time and the installation fails.

A bird in the hand looks good, but we'll see.

Grant

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Grant:

Once the PC was activated, you should not have to activate it again.

Changing the sata controller mode will not effect activation.

You have to go into the BIOS, change the sata controller mode to ahci, restart the PC and reinstall windows.

Then when you are at the Vista install now screen you do the advanced options to load the sata ahci driver into the installation as I had described.

Yes, you want a blank usb drive and don't copy and paste the entire unzipped folder, you just copy and paste all of the files inside that folder to the blank flash drive.

Now you can also try this, but I can't guarantee it will work...if this works, then you would not have to reinstall Vista.

Do the manual registry editing steps listed in the article, restart the PC and change the sata mode to AHCI, save the setting, restart the PC and hopefully, you would be good to go in the better performing AHCI mode.

The key you want to edit in the registry if you change the controller to AHCI is this key...the other registry key you modify if you want to change the storage controller BIOS setting to RAID.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/922976

[GHagen]

My Man! You go the extra distance! I don't care what they say.

I opted for the registry tweak. By far the least amount of trouble from the options proposed.

Did the tweak, restarted and changed the SATA Option in the Bios to AHCI, let Vista boot from there and when the desktop came up a little box popped up that said it was installing a device driver. When it finished, rebooted againand when Vista came back, I checked Device Manager and under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, at the bottom of the drop-down list there was, "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller" listed. So, it looks good to go!

What about task order of installing drivers and running Windows Update? Does the order matter?

Grant

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Beautiful!

I'm glad you were able to easily change the controller setting and that will give you the optimum performance for your new hard drive.

Yes...there is a recommended order of driver installation.

1. Install the Intel chipset driver I posted the other day and restart the PC.

2. Install the graphics driver and restart the PC.

3. Install the audio driver and restart the PC.

4. Ethernet driver.

Then you can install any of the remaining drivers and software in any order you want.

Then you can run windows update after all of the drivers are installed.

[GHagen]

Well, it's definately been the scenic route home, but wiser men than I have asserted that there is value in both the journey and the destination.

See you when the next thing goes wrong.

Regards,      Grant

[Paul_Tikkanen]

It was definitely an interesting problem, Grant.

And it worked out just fine in the end.

I'll be here...God willing, and the creek don't rise.