Dell Inspiron Upgrade Failing

I have a Vista SP2 laptop that I'm trying to upgrade to Windows 7. However when I pop in the disk and boot to the disk, the files load. But then the screen with the cursor where you should be able to select the keyboard language and the setup screen doesn't appear.

All I get is a black screen with the cursor I can move.

Also the install failed out the first time due to amd manager installed, so I uninstalled it and now every time I try to boot back to vista it says some amdsata.sys error message.

*dell inspiron 1545

Any idea's anyone?
Some work around with linux or UBCD?

Thanks!

It is a little strange you get such a message, because you really did not alter your hard drive, the files were just put in memory.

Do you think it is trying to continue the Windows 7 install, or some Dell Recovery utility activated and might be involved?

Do you have any recovery F key options that might help, maybe an F8 or whatever Dell uses?

What model is your system, and be exact please.

Check for newer BIOS update on Dell Support Downloads webpage for your model. If none reset BIOS to defaults: Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS - Reset BIOS

While in BIOS setup set SATA controller to AHCI to try install.

Boot installer, select Custom install, use Drive Options to delete all partitions, create new as desired, format before installing to first available partition - ignore 100mb boot partition created by installer.

If this fails reboot into DVD REpair to open a command line and run Diskpart Clean Command .

Unplug all other HD's and peripherals. Report back results for more steps.

Also, if you don't mind, were you going from a 32 bit Vista to a 64 bit Windows 7? I may try your scenario later, but I think my 1545 has an intel chipset.

gregrocker said:

Check for newer BIOS update on Dell Support Downloads webpage for your model. If none reset BIOS to defaults: Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS - Reset BIOS

While in BIOS setup set SATA controller to AHCI to try install.

Boot installer, select Custom install, use Drive Options to delete all partitions, create new as desired, format before installing to first available partition - ignore 100mb boot partition created by installer.

If this fails reboot into DVD REpair to open a command line and run Diskpart Clean Command .

Unplug all other HD's and peripherals. Report back results for more steps.

Click to expand...

It is a Dell Inspiron 1545. I ended up changing a bios setting and throwing a unattended.xml onto a flashdrive I downloaded to a flashdrive that I plugged in.

This seemed to give it the extra push, one of the two, and I got it to load the windows 7 setup finally and just did a quick clean install because obviously something was wrong on the harddrive.

Windows x64 bit and it was Vista x64 and I had upgraded the BIOS to v14 from v7

I'll double check, but I think it had a amd chip.