Reinstalling failure after upgrading XP to Vista
I've been spending this week upgrading my 2008 Dell Vostro 400 from Win XP SP3 to Windows Vista SP1, and getting a few hundred updates so now it's SP2. A few programs such as Nero and Sony Vegas failed to work with a "side by side configuration issue" that was fixed by uninstalling all the C++ in Control Panel/Programs and redownloading and installing the 2005, 2008, 2010, 2013 C++ stuff, so now those programs work again. But then I tried Acronis 2014 and it couldn't find my hard drives when I went to backup a partition or hard drive. Even my System Restore takes like 15-25 minutes to find the hard drives which is odd. I went to the Dell Support website to check on updates but the website died while I was at it after it failed a few times to do something with My Dell.
So I tried a Repair Install of Acronis, and that failed, so I uninstalled, rebooted, tried to reinstall a few times and I get an error message
Installation has failed.
Fatal error during installation.
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.
0x00620002+0x0000FFF0+0x80070422
even with the downloaded install in Acronis Setup.
When I enter my license key it asks for my previous license, which is from Acronis 2010 on this particular PC, and they both have a green checkmark next to them before the install continues, but it gets near the end then rolls back and gives me an error message.
I've disabled my Avast! antivirus during installations, not helping. I did have to close Chrome and Notepad during uninstallation. Something is hanging with this program, and I won't know what at this point. HELP!
XP was working horribly for me so I abandoned it a couple years ago for a new laptop during the last month Win 7 was on sale at the stores. This XP desktop was purchased the last month XP was available from Dell, and they included Vista discs with it to use later. Now is later, lol. My desktop suddenly has new life and I'm so stunned I may go back to using it as my primary computer, except I can't do backups which could be a deal-killer.
I did upgrade, so all my programs are still on here from XP, which is what I wanted. Since Vista is still good until 2017, I'll wait for Win 10 to come out and try to upgrade to that in 2015. I'm sick of Win 8, and Win 7 costs money or is unavailable shortly.
I tried the Windows Backup program for Vista, and that failed to find the hard drives. I do have many hard drives plugged in at the moment. I'm not sure if unplugging them all except one or two externals would help, but I haven't tried that yet.
On my Win 7 machine, I read somewhere that the system drive needs to be expanded to 450 MB (from 100 MB or 200 MB) for Acronis to work, and I did do that and Acronis worked better. My FAT16 drive on this Vista machine is 62 MB, and I'm wondering if I need to repartition that to 450 MB to make things work?
I went to the Dell Support website to check on updates but the website died while I was at it after it failed a few times to do something with My Dell.
Would you be comfortable trying to update to the latest drivers manually?
I took a peek at the Dell support site for Vostro 400 and they haven't updated the majority of drivers since November of 2011 (the hard drive firmwares were updated just this March). You would do better methinks by getting the latest drivers from the various vendor sites (the Intel drivers have thankfully been compiled here)
Do you have BIOS 1.0.15?
I'm with Scott on this. Vista was a horrible failure for MS. Most have suspended development and support for drivers. I place value on my time and if you have to spend hours or days trying to get something to work, at some point, the cost effective solution is a current OS. Your choice of course. We'll do our best to help.
I have BIOS 1.0.15
The link for the Intel RST driver site confuses me.
I'm backtracking a little with this link for ICH9 which is for my Dell. SATA Drivers for Intel ICH9 and ICH10 http://www.symantec.com/connect/downloads/readysata-drivers-intel-ich9-…
~ Even this link looks a little confusing.
I currently have a driver date of 2/5/2007 Version 8.3.0.1011 for Serial ATA Storage Controllers before updating.
I hear you Eric, it's a wall of info to be sure. Now that I know which ICH version you have I would suggest using the 11.7.4.1001, everything after that requires a newer chipset. Are you using 64-bit?
The page I linked is all sorted by version number, so just scroll down until you see 11.7.4.1001 and pick 32 or 64 bit