[jx1615]

Hey guys, I'm new here...but anyway here are my computer's specs before I begin the story. I have an AMD Manchester 3800+ processor running at 2.1 ghz, an nvidia 8800 GTS graphics card (which I just put in after having an ati), a 250 GB hard drive and 2 GB of GSKILL ram.

So I decided to upgrade my computer and I switched out both my old 400 watt power supply (for a 550 watt) and my graphics card (which used to be an ATI X1800 XT). After putting in the new parts everything ran fine, I had no problems running Windows XP. I grabbed my copy of Vista and threw the 32-bit cd in because for some reason the 64-bit version wouldn't auto-run.

Vista started installing just fine, though I had to remove Nero in the process, which came with my cd drive. Anyhow Vista was installing and got to about 53% when I left the room for a second. I came back and it rebooted, which Vista said it would do a few times during installation anyhow. I watched it reboot, flash the bios, then get to a screen where it asked me what OS I wanted to use. My keyboard wouldn't respond. I mashed on the buttons and tried to pick XP to see if I could still use it but nothing happened.

It automatically picked Vista. Then it went to a new screen where it asked me if I wanted to start in safe mode because "vista failed to start." I tried to pick safe mode but that also didn't work. I tried my roommate's keyboard and that one didn't respond either, so I know it isn't a keyboard issue. Anyhow Vista selected to run windows normally and stopped halfway during it's boot-up period, showing a blue screen of death saying IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. I've had one of these before and have not really known what causes them. I didn't install the new drivers for my graphics card yet because I assumed that all dx10 compatible cards could run vista out of the box.

So does anyone know how to get around this? I haven't been able to do anything but get into the bios, then the keyboard simply stops responding. I've not once been able to get into Vista and actually witness the program with my own eyes, it always blue screens and reboots in an infinite loop.

[DaveA]

First of all you must have 64Bit Motherboard and CPU to use the 64Bit version.
Was this a clean install or an attempt to do a Upgrade?

[jx1615]

This was an upgrade. My motherboard is an ASUS KN8, which I thought was a 64-bit model, correct me if I'm wrong.

[DaveA]

I know nothing about the AMD boards and CPU's.
During Beta there were a lot of issues about using AMD boards and CPU's on both 32 and 64 Bit. Seems that some were just NOT compatible with Vista.

[jx1615]

The main problem is that this upgrade version of Vista isn't a bootable disk. So I have to either re-install XP, which I currently don't have the disk for (it's at home) and then install vista over top of it, or get a whole new motherboard and cpu.

[jx1615]

Would re-installing XP wipe my hard drive? Is there any way of keeping all my music and photos?

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by jx1615

The main problem is that this upgrade version of Vista isn't a bootable disk. So I have to either re-install XP, which I currently don't have the disk for (it's at home) and then install vista over top of it, or get a whole new motherboard and cpu.

If it is legitimate and can be used here, then it is bootable dvd.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by jx1615

Would re-installing XP wipe my hard drive? Is there any way of keeping all my music and photos?

Yes XP cd would wipe out drive. You could take the drive out and copy off what you need onto another pc first.

[jx1615]

Well I just put in the boot disk for my friend's copy of XP, just so I can wipe the hard-drive clean and put on the copy of Vista that I bought. I put the disk in during startup and it just completely ignored it and simply won't read the disk. Is there any way of forcing it to boot through the disk?

[jx1615]

Problem solved, had to go into the BIOS and edit "Enable USB keyboard support" to 'enable' instead of disable. Only worked so long as my mouse was disabled at the same time, otherwise my computer would freeze when the BIOS would boot up.