stops at 45%...

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Guest

I am attempting to install a retail copy of vista on a Dell 460C/2GB RAM.
I ran the Vista Upgrade Advisorand it said my computer was good-to-go.

I get as far as "Installing Windows..." and get the message "That's all the
information we need right now. Your computer will restart several times
during installation." Then highlighted is the "copying windows files (45%)"
box however I cant get past this point. I see three dots (45%...) appearing
and disappearing after the message but the % does not increase. Any help at
all?

I've tried both types of installations and get the same result.
- Chris
 
cdiasmd said:
I am attempting to install a retail copy of vista on a Dell 460C/2GB RAM.
I ran the Vista Upgrade Advisorand it said my computer was good-to-go.

I get as far as "Installing Windows..." and get the message "That's all
the
information we need right now. Your computer will restart several times
during installation." Then highlighted is the "copying windows files
(45%)"
box however I cant get past this point. I see three dots (45%...)
appearing
and disappearing after the message but the % does not increase. Any help
at
all?
Click to expand...


How long did you wait? I've had some Vista installations take eight to ten
hours.

Tom Lake
 
cdiasmd said:
I get as far as "Installing Windows..." and get the message "That's all
the
information we need right now. Your computer will restart several times
during installation." Then highlighted is the "copying windows files
(45%)"
box however I cant get past this point. I see three dots (45%...)
appearing
and disappearing after the message but the % does not increase. Any help
at
Click to expand...

This is not a solution, as such - but it might help you diagnose the problem
further:

As Vista setup runs, it logs information to a file called setupact.log. This
is a plain text file which can be opened with Notepad, etc.

During the early stages of setup, this file is kept in the directory
$Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther on the C: drive
(ie, C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther\Setupact.log)

After Setup reaches its later stages, the file is moved to %WINDIR%\panther.
This is where you will find it, if/when your Vista setup ever completes
successfully.

To find out why your setup stopped at 45%, inspect this file from a Command
Prompt:

After setup fails at 45%, reboot the machine. If you still have XP
installed, start up XP. In Explorer, look for
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther\Setupact.log. Open it with Notepad.

If you don't have XP installed, boot from the Vista DVD.
Choose the option to repair the machine, rather than going to Vista
Setup.
Under the Repair options, open a Command Prompt.
type "notepad C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther\Setupact.log"

Scroll to the bottom of the Setupact.log file to see what Setup's last
operations were, before it stopped doing its thing.

The error messages you find here will hopefully give you a clue about what
is failing.

Report back to the newsgroup, if you need help interpreting what you find.

Upgrades are often blocked because of some problem with the existing
installation of XP. One way to work around the problem is this to do a clean
install, instead of an upgrade:
- back up your user data to a safe location (external hard drive, network
share, etc)
- boot up from the Vista DVD
- select the option to run Setup
- select the option to do a clean install (not an upgrade)
- re-format your hard disk to wipe the older installation
- let setup continue, performing an installation not an upgrade.
- after Vista has been installed, re-install your applications (office etc)
- restore your user data from the backup location.
If this continues to fail at 45%, you'll know there is some problem with the
machine itself, eg hardware. Note that this technique will completely wipe
all your old settings and data, so be VERY careful you first backup
everything you need to keep.

Hope it helps,
Andrew
 
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