Downloading Vista... again and again.... still won't run

[Lysander]

I've downloaded the Beta 2 three times now and the damn thing won't run. Whenever I enter the DVD into my drive it just sits there and shows me the ISO file in a new window. If I open the ISO up it takes me into Magic ISO and if I click setup.exe I just get a message saying the setup file is corrupt and giving me an error message. The DVD won't autorun either.

I'm using this download location

http://download.windowsvista.com/dl...inmain_beta2_x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso

but have no idea what could be the problem. I can't even get to the installation process. Any idea what's happening?!

 

[Lysander]

It sounds like you're not burning the disk properly - you have probably just put the ISO on the disk as a data file. You need to use software that lets you burn the file as an image to the disk. What did you use to burn the disk?

Aha - it was Sonic Record Now. You sound right! What program would let me put it on the DVD correctly?

 

[Lysander]

use nero or alcohol 120% they will both burn iso's just fine

Excellent, used Alcohol 120 and burned the disc with no problem and it runs fine.

However, I am having immense problems partitioning my drives. Whenever I try to create or even resize paritions using Partition Magic 8 the paritioning process starts then I just get an error message 1611 or 1811 after which my PC won't load Windows but just blue screens each time. I've run a scan disk on both drives and it's come up with nothing though at some point during the reboot process last week it said the drive had some unrecoverable errors. I'm starting to think the hard disk is damaged and I should just give up trying to partition it or install the beta.

 

[Lysander]

Are you partitioning it before or after you install Vista?

Before. It's worrying that PM8 can't even do something simple like resize the main partition though. Still, that may be the fault of the drive rather than the software since when I was using the same program to create partitions a couple of years ago it worked fine.

 

[Lysander]

What I'd suggest is that you go here
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
and burn it to a CD, then use XFDISK (Extended FDISK) to remove the burst partition, then start again from Partition Magic.

Saying it's a hardware fault is always the last option

Well, the Vista Beta has already been burned to disk successfully. I can't even get into XP at the moment, it just gives me a BSOD at the boot screen. I'll try and boot from the XP disk [this worked last time] or the Vista Beta as a last resort.

How would I run XFDisk in DOS - would XP then start again fine?

 

[Lysander]

XFDisk would run from the CD that you can get from that site.
This would format the entire hard drive that you are having problems with, leaving you free to boot into Partition Magic and start again from there (I assume you are using a PM boot disk rather than the windows based utility?

Mmmm... the problem is that the only burning capability I have is on that machine and I'd need to get into XP in order to do that. Still, assuming I manage it, I'll give it a go.

It's my main PC and drive but I don't mind formatting it, it's been playing up recently anyway. And yes, it's a Window's based version of PM8 I'm afraid I'll try to burn that to disk too.

 

[Lysander]

Boot to the XP CD and run a repair.
I'm sorry, I thought you were wanting to format it anyway.

If you do get into windows then you should have the option to create boot floppys from in PM.

Good luck to you mate, sorry I can't be of more help

No no, that's fine, thanks. It's probably not worth formatting the whole drive just to run the beta. As intrigued as I am by it I don't know whether it's worth that. And I have no idea whether it'll be able to run Need For Speed stably anyway.

 

[Lysander]

OK thanks - if I have to format the hard drive can I install Vista Beta as the new OS from DOS or do I actually have to be in Windows to do that?

 

[Lysander]

Just boot from the DVD, will launch straight into the setup.

Mmmm tried to do this yesterday but it just hung in the blue/green wallpaper screen and then restarted the PC after a couple of minutes. Funny, because when I tried to install the beta in Windows it all worked fine [I had to cancel the install before I put the key in because I was just testing it though]. However, this might be something to do with the fact that the file type system on the hard drive is listed as FAT and not NTFS [I think some partitioning software did that, no idea how]. Maybe I'll have to do a format and change it back to NTFS for the loader to work.

 

[Lysander]

Oh, it was the x32 version. I'm sure it'll be fine if I try to do it IN Windows.... but I can't get into Windows at the moment. I'll try to copy a new NTLDR file from the XP installation disk to start it up.... aghhh

 

[Lysander]

Had a go at installing this time and it got quite a way through the installation. However, when it got to the screen saying 'installing windows' it just hung there for ages doing nothing. The DVD drive light was off and so was the HDD LED. The hourglass had also frozen, so I cancelled the installation. Should I just leave it for hours next time?? It wasn't doing anything this time....

 

[Lysander]

Anyone? Is it normal for it to hang for hours doing nothing on the installation screen?

 

[Lysander]

OK thanks. I tried it with Alcohol 120 but I have no idea how Daemon Tools worked. It looked a little hard.

I'm buggered now anyway since by having to format the hard drive I've lost the two ISO files I downloaded plus the two product keys, and Windows only lets you have two product keys. Maybe I'll have to wait for RC1 before I'm allowed another key.

 

[Lysander]

Actually - I've just remembered this is not true. I burned the first ISO file to disk just as a file not as an image. So I can just put that back on the PC and then burn it properly to DVD as an ISO image

Can anyone give me a step by step guide of how to do it with Daemon Tools? Thanks!! I'm sure it's very simple but I'm not sure....