No boot after clean install of Vista

[GMAN_67]

Hello,
So, i have a Gateway 830GM that was running xp media center 2005. The hard drive went bad so I picked up another one WD2500KS SATA 3.0(showed up in BIOS no problem). Decided to do a clean install of Vista Home Premium. Install was successful except for the very last part where you reboot and it finalizes the install (the only thing it does after this reboot is check the systems performance, then the OS starts and goes to your desktop). Well, it would not reboot, just got the good ole black screen with the flashing cursor in the top left. So I did a hard shutdown and restarted, went into Bios and made sure everything was good there and made sure it was booting from the hard drive. Again would not boot. I know the OS is on the drive because I hooked the drive up to my laptop with an adapter and all of the files are present, tried a different SATA cable with same result and ran a chkdsk on the drive(all good there). I do see that when I start the computer I get the hard drive activity light for a few seconds(just power up I'm sure), but then nothing and back to just the blinking cursor and no hard drive activity. So my guess at this point is that the MOBO just doesn't want to play well with Vista for some reason. Because of the former OS I figured I would probably have to get some different drivers, but didn't think it would give me this much grief!
Any suggestions or solutions would be greatly appreaciated!

Thx
Gary

 

[Combat Wombat]

Check that your RAID is configured correctly. Software RAID is compatible with a dual boot environment involving windows but windows will not be able to mount or read any partition involved in the pure software RAID, and all pseudo-hardware RAID controllers must be turned off.

This HOWTO assumes you are using SATA drives but it should work equally well with IDE drives. If you are using IDE drives, for maximum performance make sure that each drive is a master on its own separate channel.

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/RAID/Software#Misc_RAID_stuff

 

[GMAN_67]

Thanks Combat Wombat,

I just have the 1 SATA drive that I mentioned, so I'm not sure that RAID would be the issue.

However, after an exhaustive search I found that remnants of a former OS (such as Linux) could be causing the issue (even after a quick format). So I am now wiping the drive with DBAN to see if this solves the problem. I will report the outcome.

P.S. If anybody out there wants to run DBAN make sure you have some time on your hands! Looks like mine is going to take about 7 or 8 hours, it's a 250 gig.

Cheers
Gary

 

[Combat Wombat]

Sweet as.

 

[GMAN_67]

SOLVED!!
Wiping the disc did the trick. found out that this also works if you have a windows installation disc that will not boot.

Good luck all!
Gary

 

[Combat Wombat]

gg

 

[Guest]

i got it working, starting with the w7 installation dvd in repair mode,
opening a DOS console, and writing bootsect /nt60 ALL
this rewrites the boot sector in all partitions, and restores the windows7 bootmanager that went misteriusly broken after a perfect install...

 

[mibix19]

RE Dban, Booting with puppy linux will allow you to delete your hard drive very quickly.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Best answer selected by mousemonkey.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey