Vista Home Premium 64 bit Install Issue

[Darkhorse4]

Hello all, this is my first post. From reading other posts, I am hopeful that someone can help me out. I have built a handful of systems in the past, but this Vista issue is stumping me. Here are my specs.

Antec 900 Case
Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 Mobo
AMD Phenom 9850 2.5 GHz Quad-Core processor
8 GB GSkill 1066MHz DDR2 RAM
Sapphire Toxic Edition ATI 3750HD 256-bit 512MB DDR4 Graphics
PC Power & Cooling 860 W Power Supply
Blu-Ray & HD-DVD/DVD Burner
Seagate SATA2 250GB HDD x2

Everything installed easily, the motherboard recognizes my drives and all my ram at the correct speed, and I was thrilled. Put in my Vista 64 disk and it launches the install, I partitioned my drives and selected a 100 GB partition for Vista (it requires 40). The disc copies files in about 2 seconds it flashes from 0 to 100%, then goes to it's next step of expanding files. Will take typically about 30-45 seconds to get to 1% and then reboots. When it boots back up, it gives me the option to boot from CD, which I decline, and then says BOOTMGR is missing pres CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.
So, after rebooting, I boot from CD, launches into install again and I selct repair my PC. It runs for about a minute and says that it cannot repair this PC because the BOOTMGR is missing.
So, I use the DOS prompt to navigate to the folder on the disc that has BOOTMGR and copy it to my C: drive. Go through all the steps listed above and when it reboots at 1% and I bypass CD-boot, boot manager loads and gives me a screen that the boot is corrupted. After this, I go to the repair utility again and it says that it cannot repair because of a partition error.
I do not have the drives in a RAID array, I have the RAID controller in IDE mode.
Please help. I have tried different drives, different partitions, tried to boot with an IDE drive I had lying around, and the same error everytime. I want this to be something I'm overlooking, and have forgotten to set, any help is very much appreciated.

Thanks!!

[HAL9000]

The file is missing because hardly anything is installed yet and my first suspicion is RAM. Strip the system down to a minimum of RAM required (It's been a while since I've built, so if you can do one stick, do so, if not, one pair) and try it, if it still fails, swap out the sticks and try again.

[pam123]

I agree with Hal about ram.

The 4th post in this thread is a similar problem and Vista gave no warning : http://www.vistax64.com/vista-instal...-t-finish.html

Here's Microsoft's tutorial for installing Vista 64 : http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/11...ion-vista.html

The full Installation and Set-Up Forum is here : http://www.vistax64.com/vista-installation-setup/

[Darkhorse4]

Thanks, I'll try the RAM dance and hope that solves it.

[Darkhorse4]

It was something I overlooked after all. Mobo was undervolting the RAM. Intalled easily after fixing that. Now, the integrated LAN is causing system crashes. Thanks for the help folks, would've overlooked RAM otherwise.

[pam123]

Nice Job.

Could you keep us updated on performance ?

[Darkhorse4]

OK, after a BIOS flash (which i was able to do with a USB jump drive), LAN driver update, and Audio driver update, I'm stable. 5.9's across the board for the Vista experience. I've not overclocked at all, and most likely won't. Stock, cpu runs 2.55 GHz x4 and idles at 26 degrees, RAM frequency is 1150-ish at 2.06 V.

Haven't been able to do anything crazy yet, but I can tell you that it installed Office 2007 Pro in 4 minutes, and can run WoW at 120 fps with all settings maxed. I ran an AOD benchmark and it scores consistent 7200's. Not sure what the AOD benchmark is representative of, or if that's a good or bad score, but it is what it is.

Thanks again.

[pam123]

Read up on AOD here : http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/amd_phenom/22.shtml

[Darkhorse4]

I've been plagued with instability. Ranging from shutdowns while using saving documents, to gaming, to clicking the start button. My mind went back to RAM. Then it wouldn't boot. Got to crcdisk.sys and stopped, so I was thinking Vista. Then it booted once with no sound, then again later with no SATA support. So now I'm thinking motherboard. I've run memory tests successfully, did the RAM dance to find the bad stick, and nothing. Please help...again.

[shadowpr]

So memtests doesn't report errors?

Try running seatools in dos: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...oads/seatools/

If that comes out clean, then try a reinstall. See if that helps.

If not, then it might be the motherboard.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by Darkhorse4 I've been plagued with instability. Ranging from shutdowns while using saving documents, to gaming, to clicking the start button. My mind went back to RAM. Then it wouldn't boot. Got to crcdisk.sys and stopped, so I was thinking Vista. Then it booted once with no sound, then again later with no SATA support. So now I'm thinking motherboard. I've run memory tests successfully, did the RAM dance to find the bad stick, and nothing. Please help...again.

shadowpr has the right approach.
Unfortunately empiricism is the only way to go here.
If the memory clears and the hard drive clears after a re-install then you're looking at either/or the power supply or the motherboard.

Before you RMA anything we'll want you to try an out of the case run but for now it's one thing at a time.

[Darkhorse4]

OK, I can't boot from CD now. I've changed boot order in bios, used the boot order menu (outside BIOS). It verifies the DMI data, asks me if i want to boot from CD. I say yes, it boots from disk, which then hangs it at the crcdisk.sys. I've moved the CD to a different SATA port and to a different SATA controller. BIOS sees the disk everywhere, but won't let me use it. BIOS is latest and greatest, maybe a rollback?

[pam123]

No.
RMA the board, if you flash the bios they won't take it back.

[Darkhorse4]

I've flashed it already to the latest version. Which, originally solved some other issues I was having.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by Darkhorse4 I've flashed it already to the latest version. Which, originally solved some other issues I was having.

Gaahhahqahaha!!!!

OK, ping Gigabyte Support now.

[Darkhorse4]

OK, got the new board via RMA. Installed it, everything ran smooth...for about 10 minutes. Then, restart. No BSOD, just restart. Tried to run a memtest via windows setup disk, and...restart about 20% into the first pass. So, RMA has been issued for the RAM. Ugghh.

[shadowpr]

Are you trying to install with all four sticks of ram, or just one?

[Darkhorse4]

All 4 are in.

[pam123]

Since those are 2 GB sticks you can try one stick at a time.
If they all pass then it's possible you may need to up the ram voltage slightly.
The key word here is slightly.

[Darkhorse4]

I've tried adjusting the voltage, and the speed, to no avail. I will try it one stick at a time and see what I can find out. Thank you guys sooo much. I am used to just trial and erroring myself to death, this whole "asking for help" is pretty nice.

[shadowpr]

It's always nice to have somewhere to go to get a fresh perspective. That's why I stay on this site, I get to learn a lot.

I would definately try to do the install with just one stick. I believe there were issues with using 4 sticks and installing Windows.