Fails to complete installation, no error

[Guest]

I have downloaded the ISO of Windows Vista Beta 2 Build 5384.4 x86. It
successfully burned to DvD, and I can install it while running Win XP
Professional... well, almost. In the middle of that last "Completing
Installation" step after the second reboot, it switches to a black screen
with a little blinking cursor in the upper left corner, doing nothing. So I
let it sit for an hour or two, came back: the screen was still black, no
error message, nothing happening. Just the cursor was gone now as well. I
tried this installation two times, both with the same result.

I installed it into a separate, freshly NTFS formatted partition, 20 GB in
size - should be plenty. Upon system startup, I can choose between Vista and
XP, but Vista isn't starting up - it hangs at exactly the same kind of black
screen I got on the install, no error. If I start it in safe mode, it loads
all drivers and then does nothing.

Two oddities I noticed:
-When reformatting the partition, PartitionMagic 8.0 only shows
questionmarks for the drive name (even though I named it), fails to correctly
show how much space is left on the partition, and claims it has a NTFS
version 0.0 file system. Riiiight.
-When attempting to install after booting from the DvD, the first thing I
get after hitting "Install Now" is a popup window telling me that the current
disk does not contain the driver information, I am to enter the disk that
contains the driver information. Aside from reading this very helpful and
specific advice, I cannot do anything but hit reset as there is no cancel
button.

Maybe the install data is damaged. Can someone give me the MD5 hash for this
build's ISO, so I can make sure the download wasn't corrupt? Aside from this,
I have no idea what could have gone wrong.

I run a P4/2.66GHz Northwood core on a MSI 6701 board with 1024 MB DDR-333
RAM and a Geforce 6600GT/128MB. The computer has an oddity in the form of a
4-in-1 flash card reader mounted on the front panel, but if Vista lacked a
driver for that, it should simply not work, not kill the installation, right?
Because aside from that module, the update advisor certified my computer as
being able to handle Vista just fine...

 

[droid]

It's most likely a driver hang.

Finding setup logs, reporting and attaching logs to report, figuring out
what device or driver causes hangs or crash during setup:

1. google -> beta client (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=43655)
The first link should be Microsoft link. It needs .NET but I think it will
be installed if you try to run it without it..

2. finding and identifying the correct logs

setupapi.app.log
setupapi.dev.log <<-- last 100 lines here may indicate the hanging driver

These are the primary setup logs, there are others but these are the major.


Hint: Before searching logs try Folder Options and enable viewing of hidden
folders and files. Also try Run diskmgmt.msc -> assign drive letters for
partitions with no drive letters.

A:

There can be multiple logs with the same name, but they are different! First
look at the drive you tried to install Vista to, if it has Vista
Windows\INF\ directory and the mentioned logs files.

B: early setup failure

If you can't find Windows VISTA directory (if setup did not get so far) then
look all volumes/partitions in the drives that were on the machine during
the install for directories starting with $. There are 2-4 of them (possibly
in different partitions) depending on when the setup failed. Search for .log
under all the *:\$WINDOWS.. and again look at the date/minute timestamp to
see which of the logs was changed just before the failure occured.



Also see that the date and Minute timestamp of the log files are around the
time when the setup failed, sometimes a setup/install failure causes the
computer to automatically reboot and the setup will run again but failing in
different way than the first time (making the bug report less useful). For
best bug report it's better to catch the failure when it first happens. Yes
it means starting the install all over again and keeping eye on it. But this
will guarantee that the last line in the log will be around the time of the
failure. If it is a driver crash then you can figure out the offending
driver yourself just by looking at the last lines of setupapi.dev.log.

 

[Guest]

I checked the two logfiles, and noticed that there's a little exclamation
mark next to stuff that went wrong. In setupapi.app.log, this is the final
section:

[SetupInstallFromInfSection - Ndis-Mp-AsyncMac]
Section start 2006/06/20 07:38:04.699

cmd: "K:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe" streamci,StreamingDeviceSetup
{eeab7790-c514-11d1-b42b-00805fc1270e},asyncmac,{ad498944-762f-11d0-8dcb-00c04fc3358c},K:\Windows\INF\netrasa.inf,Ndis-Mp-AsyncMac
! inf: Section empty or not found: [Ndis-Mp-AsyncMac]
inf: Copyfiles: none
inf: Renfiles: none
inf: Delfiles: none
flq: {_COMMIT_FILE_QUEUE}
flq: CommitQ DelNodes=0 RenNodes=0 BackNodes=0 CopyNodes=0
flq: {_COMMIT_FILE_QUEUE exit(0x00000000)}
<<< Section end 2006/06/20 07:38:04.715
<<< [Exit status: SUCCESS]

This "section empty or not found" error also shows up many many times in
setupapi.dev.log in the second half, but not in the last 100 lines. In
addition, that log is littered with errors of this type:

[...]
ndv: Saving LastKnownGood file
K:\Windows\system32\propext.inf (delete)
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_STARTDELETE - exit(0x00000001)}
! flq: Error deleting file 'K:\Windows\system32\propext.inf'
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_DELETEERROR}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_DELETEERROR - exit(0x00000002)}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_ENDDELETE}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_ENDDELETE - exit(0x00000001)}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_STARTDELETE}
ndv: Saving LastKnownGood file
K:\Windows\system32\tmusb.inf (delete)
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_STARTDELETE - exit(0x00000001)}
! flq: Error deleting file 'K:\Windows\system32\tmusb.inf'
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_DELETEERROR}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_DELETEERROR - exit(0x00000002)}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_ENDDELETE}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_ENDDELETE - exit(0x00000001)}
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_STARTDELETE}
ndv: Saving LastKnownGood file
K:\Windows\system32\ehidmous.inf (delete)
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_STARTDELETE - exit(0x00000001)}
! flq: Error deleting file 'K:\Windows\system32\ehidmous.inf'
flq: {SPFILENOTIFY_DELETEERROR}
[...]

For reference, these are the last couple of lines from the setupapi.dev.log:

[...]
dvi: {DIF_NEWDEVICEWIZARD_FINISHINSTALL} 07:38:21.137
dvi: CoInstaller 1: Enter
dvi: CoInstaller 1: Exit
dvi: CoInstaller 2: Enter
dvi: CoInstaller 2: Exit
dvi: Class installer: Enter
dvi: Class installer: Exit
dvi: {DIF_NEWDEVICEWIZARD_FINISHINSTALL - exit(0x00000000)}
07:38:21.137
ndv: Device install status=0x00000000
ndv: Performing device install final cleanup...
ndv: {Core Device Install - exit(0x00000000)}
dvi: {DIF_DESTROYPRIVATEDATA} 07:38:21.152
dvi: CoInstaller 1: Enter
dvi: CoInstaller 1: Exit
dvi: CoInstaller 2: Enter
dvi: CoInstaller 2: Exit
dvi: Class installer: Enter
dvi: Class installer: Exit
dvi: {DIF_DESTROYPRIVATEDATA - exit(0x00000000)} 07:38:21.152
ump: Server install process exited with code 0x00000000
<<< Section end 2006/06/20 07:38:21.152
<<< [Exit status: SUCCESS]

The first error doesn't appear until well over a thousand lines upwards of
this.