Cannot upgrade Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate

[C.B.]

I apologize for the length of this diatribe. Here we go. I bought a new
computer two years ago. It. came with Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I upgraded
to Vista Ultimate 32 bit. No problem. I saved a full image of Ultimate to an
external HD using Acronis. I did a clean install of Win 7 Beta when it was
released.
I decided to remove the Win 7 Beta and go back to Vista Ultimate using the
Acronis Image. The Acronis image of Vista Ultimate destroyed my boot sector
and I could not go back to the Vista Ultimate image so I did a repair using
the Win 7 repair DVD I had made. That fixed the boot problem.
I then had to do a custom install of the original OEM Vista Home Premium,
with the intent of doing a clean install of Vista Ultimate as an upgrade to
the Vista Home Premium. I selected "format" during the OEM Vista Home
Premium custom install but was not offered a full reformat. It installed
with no problems, or so I thought. My C Drive has always been one partition.
I don't use recovery partitions and I don't partition my internal HD for
dual boot or any other reasons.
I then decided to do the custom install of my Vista Ultimate 64 bit in place
of the Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I know you can't upgrade a 32 bit to a 64
bit. I received a blue screen with error code STOP: 0x0000007E
(0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF8000985E251, 0xFFFFF98000E0EB98,
0xFFFFF98000E0E570. No driver was listed as causing the problem. I spent
appx. 18 hours researching the problem, to no avail. I then decided to just
do an in place upgrade using my Vista Ultimate 32 bit.
I've done many upgrades and custom installs before, never having any
problems. I made sure that I had installed Vista SP1 for the purpose of
eliminating the "Vista won't install if you have over 3 GB of memory"
problem. My memory sticks all checked out. I tested my internal C Drive and
everything is OK. I went into my BIOS and disabled caching and shadowing. I
did everything I could think of to find the problem but came up empty.
Upon inserting my Vista Ultimate 32 bit DVD, with the intent of doing an in
place upgrade I received a small error window stating that there was not
enough room on my "D Drive" for the installation. I right clicked on
Computer and selected Manage, then Disk Management. It shows Disk 0 as
partitioned, with a System Reserved (D (100 MB NTFS, Healthy-System,
Active, Primary Partition) and (C (297.99 GB NTFS, Healthy-Boot, Page
File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition). My DVD Drive had been renamed G
(previously D), my DVD RW Drive had been renamed H (previously E), with my
two external drives being renamed E and F (always F and G before).
So, as it now stands I can't do a clean install because of the blue screen
problem. I can't upgrade because Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to install to D
instead of C. I don't understand why my custom reinstall of Vista Home
Premium 32 bit is on my C Drive yet the Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to
install to D.
What the hell is going on? I'm certainly not going to go out and buy a full
version of Windows 7 Ultimate and not be able to do a custom install. I
remember that during my troubleshooting I came across an article dealing
with "cannot install a new OS on a computer using a processor other than
Intel when the original OEM image was placed using an Intel processor.
However, I can't locate that article again. There was a registry change that
would eliminate that particular problem.
Thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide.

C.B.

 

[C.B.]

Sorry. I neglected to mention that this "D" the Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants
to install to includes two folders, which are "$UpgDrv$", size 1 KB, which
Windows cannot open and "BOOTSECT.BAK", size 8 KB, which also cannot be
opened by Windows. I cannot locate any software that will open them.

C.B.

 

[C.B.]

Sorry. I neglected to mention that this "D" the Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants
to install to includes two folders, which are "$UpgDrv$", size 1 KB, which
Windows cannot open and "BOOTSECT.BAK", size 8 KB, which also cannot be
opened by Windows. I cannot locate any software that will open them.

C.B.

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Just trying to help,

What the hell is going on? I'm certainly not going to go out and buy a
full version of Windows 7 Ultimate and not be able to do a custom install.

As far as I know, one can use a retail upgrade/full version for a clean
install and I have successfully done it with an upgrade version.

I remember that during my troubleshooting I came across an article dealing
with "cannot install a new OS on a computer using a processor other than
Intel when the original OEM image was placed using an Intel processor.
However, I can't locate that article again. There was a registry change
that would eliminate that particular problem.

Does it mean that you have changed the processor since the image has been
made? If so, my approach is to do a clean install to avoid issues that may
arise at a later time.

The Acronis image of Vista Ultimate destroyed my boot sector and I could
not go back to the Vista Ultimate image so I did a repair using the Win 7
repair DVD I had made. That fixed the boot problem.

It shows Disk 0 as partitioned, with a System Reserved (D (100 MB NTFS,
Healthy-System, Active, Primary Partition) and [...]

[From your second post...] this "D" the Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to
install to includes two folders, which are "$UpgDrv$", size 1 KB, which
Windows cannot open and "BOOTSECT.BAK", size 8 KB, which also cannot be
opened by Windows. I cannot locate any software that will open them.

My guess based on the above three paragraphs of information is that D might
be created by Vista (during the initial installation) and/or by Windows 7
(when you used it to fix the boot problem), and more likely is by Windows 7
since there is a "BOOTSECT.BAK" file. Again, this is just my guess.

Overall speaking, my approach will be to delete all partitions and to
perform a clean install from ground zero instead of trying to fix the
problem. The current system state seems to be rather complicated because of
several attempts with different installation medias that could have confused
the system and may have caused conflicts.

Hope it helps and good luck.

 

[C.B.]

Hey xfile,

I did some more research and discovered an article that suggested going
into the BIOS and disabling USB support, which is what I did. However, I
left the two USB ports on the front of the tower operational, thinking I
would need the use of a keyboard and mouse during installation. I had no
problems after doing that. The install went perfectly.
What I don't understand is why I had to do this. I disconnected all my
hardware from the computer before attempting the initial clean install and I
ended up getting bluescreened to death. I had absolutely nothing connected
to any of the USB ports or Firewire ports, with the exception of my
Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse.
I'm just thankful I had enough sense to leave my front ports open. I
would have had no way to use a keyboard to F2 my way back into the BIOS and
I would have had no mouse to click on "Next" during the install.
Oh well, I've never claimed to know much about computers.

C.B.

Hi,

Just trying to help,

What the hell is going on? I'm certainly not going to go out and buy a
full version of Windows 7 Ultimate and not be able to do a custom
install.

As far as I know, one can use a retail upgrade/full version for a clean
install and I have successfully done it with an upgrade version.

I remember that during my troubleshooting I came across an article
dealing with "cannot install a new OS on a computer using a processor
other than Intel when the original OEM image was placed using an Intel
processor. However, I can't locate that article again. There was a
registry change that would eliminate that particular problem.

Does it mean that you have changed the processor since the image has been
made? If so, my approach is to do a clean install to avoid issues that
may arise at a later time.

The Acronis image of Vista Ultimate destroyed my boot sector and I could
not go back to the Vista Ultimate image so I did a repair using the Win 7
repair DVD I had made. That fixed the boot problem.

It shows Disk 0 as partitioned, with a System Reserved (D (100 MB NTFS,
Healthy-System, Active, Primary Partition) and [...]

[From your second post...] this "D" the Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to
install to includes two folders, which are "$UpgDrv$", size 1 KB, which
Windows cannot open and "BOOTSECT.BAK", size 8 KB, which also cannot be
opened by Windows. I cannot locate any software that will open them.

My guess based on the above three paragraphs of information is that D
might be created by Vista (during the initial installation) and/or by
Windows 7 (when you used it to fix the boot problem), and more likely is
by Windows 7 since there is a "BOOTSECT.BAK" file. Again, this is just my
guess.

Overall speaking, my approach will be to delete all partitions and to
perform a clean install from ground zero instead of trying to fix the
problem. The current system state seems to be rather complicated because
of several attempts with different installation medias that could have
confused the system and may have caused conflicts.

Hope it helps and good luck.

I apologize for the length of this diatribe. Here we go. I bought a new
computer two years ago. It. came with Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I
upgraded to Vista Ultimate 32 bit. No problem. I saved a full image of
Ultimate to an external HD using Acronis. I did a clean install of Win 7
Beta when it was released.
I decided to remove the Win 7 Beta and go back to Vista Ultimate using
the Acronis Image. The Acronis image of Vista Ultimate destroyed my boot
sector and I could not go back to the Vista Ultimate image so I did a
repair using the Win 7 repair DVD I had made. That fixed the boot
problem.
I then had to do a custom install of the original OEM Vista Home Premium,
with the intent of doing a clean install of Vista Ultimate as an upgrade
to the Vista Home Premium. I selected "format" during the OEM Vista Home
Premium custom install but was not offered a full reformat. It installed
with no problems, or so I thought. My C Drive has always been one
partition. I don't use recovery partitions and I don't partition my
internal HD for dual boot or any other reasons.
I then decided to do the custom install of my Vista Ultimate 64 bit in
place of the Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I know you can't upgrade a 32 bit
to a 64 bit. I received a blue screen with error code STOP: 0x0000007E
(0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF8000985E251, 0xFFFFF98000E0EB98,
0xFFFFF98000E0E570. No driver was listed as causing the problem. I spent
appx. 18 hours researching the problem, to no avail. I then decided to
just do an in place upgrade using my Vista Ultimate 32 bit.
I've done many upgrades and custom installs before, never having any
problems. I made sure that I had installed Vista SP1 for the purpose of
eliminating the "Vista won't install if you have over 3 GB of memory"
problem. My memory sticks all checked out. I tested my internal C Drive
and everything is OK. I went into my BIOS and disabled caching and
shadowing. I did everything I could think of to find the problem but came
up empty.
Upon inserting my Vista Ultimate 32 bit DVD, with the intent of doing an
in place upgrade I received a small error window stating that there was
not enough room on my "D Drive" for the installation. I right clicked on
Computer and selected Manage, then Disk Management. It shows Disk 0 as
partitioned, with a System Reserved (D (100 MB NTFS, Healthy-System,
Active, Primary Partition) and (C (297.99 GB NTFS, Healthy-Boot, Page
File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition). My DVD Drive had been renamed G
(previously D), my DVD RW Drive had been renamed H (previously E), with
my two external drives being renamed E and F (always F and G before).
So, as it now stands I can't do a clean install because of the blue
screen problem. I can't upgrade because Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to
install to D instead of C. I don't understand why my custom reinstall of
Vista Home Premium 32 bit is on my C Drive yet the Vista Ultimate 32 bit
wants to install to D.
What the hell is going on? I'm certainly not going to go out and buy a
full version of Windows 7 Ultimate and not be able to do a custom
install. I remember that during my troubleshooting I came across an
article dealing with "cannot install a new OS on a computer using a
processor other than Intel when the original OEM image was placed using
an Intel processor. However, I can't locate that article again. There was
a registry change that would eliminate that particular problem.
Thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide.

C.B.

 

[xfile]

I did some more research and discovered an article that suggested

going into the BIOS and disabling USB support, which is what I did.

I have no idea why it suggested that, but glad you have sorted it out.

Good luck.

Hey xfile,

I did some more research and discovered an article that suggested
going into the BIOS and disabling USB support, which is what I did.
However, I left the two USB ports on the front of the tower operational,
thinking I would need the use of a keyboard and mouse during installation.
I had no problems after doing that. The install went perfectly.
What I don't understand is why I had to do this. I disconnected all my
hardware from the computer before attempting the initial clean install and
I ended up getting bluescreened to death. I had absolutely nothing
connected to any of the USB ports or Firewire ports, with the exception of
my Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse.
I'm just thankful I had enough sense to leave my front ports open. I
would have had no way to use a keyboard to F2 my way back into the BIOS
and I would have had no mouse to click on "Next" during the install.
Oh well, I've never claimed to know much about computers.

C.B.

Hi,

Just trying to help,

What the hell is going on? I'm certainly not going to go out and buy a
full version of Windows 7 Ultimate and not be able to do a custom
install.

As far as I know, one can use a retail upgrade/full version for a clean
install and I have successfully done it with an upgrade version.

I remember that during my troubleshooting I came across an article
dealing with "cannot install a new OS on a computer using a processor
other than Intel when the original OEM image was placed using an Intel
processor. However, I can't locate that article again. There was a
registry change that would eliminate that particular problem.

Does it mean that you have changed the processor since the image has been
made? If so, my approach is to do a clean install to avoid issues that
may arise at a later time.

The Acronis image of Vista Ultimate destroyed my boot sector and I could
not go back to the Vista Ultimate image so I did a repair using the Win
7 repair DVD I had made. That fixed the boot problem.

It shows Disk 0 as partitioned, with a System Reserved (D (100 MB
NTFS, Healthy-System, Active, Primary Partition) and [...]

[From your second post...] this "D" the Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to
install to includes two folders, which are "$UpgDrv$", size 1 KB, which
Windows cannot open and "BOOTSECT.BAK", size 8 KB, which also cannot be
opened by Windows. I cannot locate any software that will open them.

My guess based on the above three paragraphs of information is that D
might be created by Vista (during the initial installation) and/or by
Windows 7 (when you used it to fix the boot problem), and more likely is
by Windows 7 since there is a "BOOTSECT.BAK" file. Again, this is just
my guess.

Overall speaking, my approach will be to delete all partitions and to
perform a clean install from ground zero instead of trying to fix the
problem. The current system state seems to be rather complicated because
of several attempts with different installation medias that could have
confused the system and may have caused conflicts.

Hope it helps and good luck.

I apologize for the length of this diatribe. Here we go. I bought a new
computer two years ago. It. came with Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I
upgraded to Vista Ultimate 32 bit. No problem. I saved a full image of
Ultimate to an external HD using Acronis. I did a clean install of Win 7
Beta when it was released.
I decided to remove the Win 7 Beta and go back to Vista Ultimate using
the Acronis Image. The Acronis image of Vista Ultimate destroyed my boot
sector and I could not go back to the Vista Ultimate image so I did a
repair using the Win 7 repair DVD I had made. That fixed the boot
problem.
I then had to do a custom install of the original OEM Vista Home
Premium, with the intent of doing a clean install of Vista Ultimate as
an upgrade to the Vista Home Premium. I selected "format" during the OEM
Vista Home Premium custom install but was not offered a full reformat.
It installed with no problems, or so I thought. My C Drive has always
been one partition. I don't use recovery partitions and I don't
partition my internal HD for dual boot or any other reasons.
I then decided to do the custom install of my Vista Ultimate 64 bit in
place of the Vista Home Premium 32 bit. I know you can't upgrade a 32
bit to a 64 bit. I received a blue screen with error code STOP:
0x0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF8000985E251, 0xFFFFF98000E0EB98,
0xFFFFF98000E0E570. No driver was listed as causing the problem. I spent
appx. 18 hours researching the problem, to no avail. I then decided to
just do an in place upgrade using my Vista Ultimate 32 bit.
I've done many upgrades and custom installs before, never having any
problems. I made sure that I had installed Vista SP1 for the purpose of
eliminating the "Vista won't install if you have over 3 GB of memory"
problem. My memory sticks all checked out. I tested my internal C Drive
and everything is OK. I went into my BIOS and disabled caching and
shadowing. I did everything I could think of to find the problem but
came up empty.
Upon inserting my Vista Ultimate 32 bit DVD, with the intent of doing an
in place upgrade I received a small error window stating that there was
not enough room on my "D Drive" for the installation. I right clicked on
Computer and selected Manage, then Disk Management. It shows Disk 0 as
partitioned, with a System Reserved (D (100 MB NTFS, Healthy-System,
Active, Primary Partition) and (C (297.99 GB NTFS, Healthy-Boot, Page
File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition). My DVD Drive had been renamed G
(previously D), my DVD RW Drive had been renamed H (previously E), with
my two external drives being renamed E and F (always F and G before).
So, as it now stands I can't do a clean install because of the blue
screen problem. I can't upgrade because Vista Ultimate 32 bit wants to
install to D instead of C. I don't understand why my custom reinstall of
Vista Home Premium 32 bit is on my C Drive yet the Vista Ultimate 32 bit
wants to install to D.
What the hell is going on? I'm certainly not going to go out and buy a
full version of Windows 7 Ultimate and not be able to do a custom
install. I remember that during my troubleshooting I came across an
article dealing with "cannot install a new OS on a computer using a
processor other than Intel when the original OEM image was placed using
an Intel processor. However, I can't locate that article again. There
was a registry change that would eliminate that particular problem.
Thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide.

C.B.