Windows 7: Win 7 & Vista Dual Boot Installation - Vista Won't Load

New laptop has Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I have two business programs that won't run on a 64bit system. Partitioned the hard drive to install Vista Home Premium 32bit to create a dual boot system solely to run these two programs.

Can't get Vista to load. Followed tutorial meticulously. All goes fine until the "Vista will boot for the first time" step. After this first boot, the screen returns to the "completing installation" page. However, the process dies here and the progress bar across the bottom of the screen never moves, even after an hour. Reformatted the partition and started over with same results. Multiple attempts always die after the first boot.

What gives? This is very exasperating. This should not be this hard.

Where did you get Vista? Check if the disk is dirty and clean it. If you burned it yourself, Verify DVD using IMgBurn. Load ISO in to make sure it says "Bootable" in text at left, then load DVD and Verify against ISO. Burn another DVD at 4x speed.

Are you running the Vista installer from Windows 7 or booting it? Try the other way.

Used ImgBurn to verify disk - checks out fine. Don't know what you mean by "load ISO in" and "verify against ISO." How do you do that?

Hello gmatting, welcome to Seven Forums!





He means (I believe) to check the ISO hashes against the actual Vista file hashes, a way to verify that the ISO is genuine.

HashTab 3.0 - The easiest way to verify file authenticity and integrity



Are you booting from the Vista DVD or are you trying to install from in Windows 7?

If the latter, try booting from the DVD.

How To Change the Drive Boot Priority in BIOS

Didn't you load the ISO file into ImgBurn when you clicked Verify choice? That's the only way you could have verified the DVD. Well look at the text at left to see if it says bootable

I put the disk in the DVD drive, launched ImgBurn, listed the drive as the source, then clicked "Verify" from the pull-down menu. There is no text at the left. There is a text box on the right which has nothing pertaining to whether it is bootable or not. I perceive what I am doing is not what you are suggesting.

I tried launching from Windows 7 and got an absurd error message that said "This computer does not have enough space for temporary files. Windows installation needs at least 405 megabytes (MB) of space on any partition for temporary files. To install windows, free enough space and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070103." This is a 320GB hard drive and the partition is the recommended 40GB - there is more than enough room for any temporary files.

I then changed the BIOS boot sequence to boot from the DVD drive. As stated earlier, that works just fine until the first boot is accomplished, at which point the installation stops.

You didn't reply where you got Vista. But you followed the steps to verify a burned DVD so w'ere assuming you downloaded the ISO.

Load ISO into ImgBurn using Add File button first to confirm it is bootable, then Verify it against DVD you burned.

Again: where did you get Vista? Has it been used to install previously so that you know it works?

Try also Wiping the partition you created for Vista with free Partition Wizard bootable CD, the best partition manager for Windows 7. Then use booted DVD to Create and format the partition.

Sorry I'm a bit slow. The disk was burned by my son-in-law who is an IT technician. He had used it for at least one other installation without problem.

I ran it thru ImgBurn again. It said "ISO9660(Bootable)" - is this what you were referring to? It verified OK again with no read errors.

I'll try wiping the partition with Partition Wizard as you suggest and try again.

Problem solved. Had nothing to do with what we've been discussing here. Twisted the arm of my son-in-law to take a look. He changed the SATA Controller Mode in the BIOS setting from ACHI to Compatibility - Vista then loaded like a charm. Had no effect on running Windows 7.

Lesson learned for next time.

Hello again.







Glad to see you found a solution and thanks for posting the update.