[SOLVED] Windows Vista Setup stuck on completing installation.

[legoman77]

So I cracked out my old pc that me and my siblings used growing up, it had windows xp on it. putting it away I dropped it and me and my friend have made repairs to it. We found one of his old broken pcs and borrowed the sata and I popped it in, windows xp bluescreened, and I used linux for a day, but it wasn't working how I wanted, so I put the vista setup files on a usb, the setup has gone as normal, but its stuck on completing installation. any fixes? I know for windows 7 you can install drivers to the usb.

 

[popatim]

How long have you let it run finishing setup?

 

[Hardly_Qualified723]

I had this same issue and unfortunately what solved my problem WAS driver based (HDD or something ridiculous that should be in every version), turns out if I used a higher/different edition of it in a second CD/DVD drive it worked perfectly fine, actually had the issue with XP media edition as well that fixed when i inserted regular XP.

May have been scratches since I was younger and much less careful then, my suggestions in order of simplicity...

Run a scandisk from Vista before you even install, full throttle (all options, no quick version) and see if you have any bad sectors. Memory is an idea too, but I might try the software idea below first as a FULL memory error check from windows boot takes quite a long time and memory is the last thing to fail.

Check the Install you used for USB for scratches (to the extreme, particularly around the center of the DVD/CD), if you didn't use media such as a DVD, try to find a higher edition like premium or such.

Download your own drivers for your machine first (or run the XP CD in a SECONDARY boot option like a CD-ROM) these can usually be arranged in the BIOS for first-load preference if its a stock PC and it may find the driver, particularly if you had a graphics card...

On the note of a graphics card, it may simply not be compatible with Vista or have no driver, it can be forced, but removing it would make it run off the standard driver until you can get that far and would be a good test.

Also make sure the Vista setup isn't machine specific, sometimes that can cause it--or as stated above, let it just sit. some old machines with a loaded vista can take a really long time.

Try another HDD.

Try Try again (copying first if you used a ROM to make the USB)

All I got for now, its been a long day but I hope it helps in some way for ideas.

Best of luck.