Hi, (long read sorry)

Well my hard drive died last week, so I ordered a couple of new ones because I was wanting to try a RAID 0 array. They arrived yesterday in the post and I set everything up and created the array which went fine. Put the XP installation disk in and loading RAID drivers and that went fine.

Came to installing Vista with an upgrade disk and chose the clean installation and loaded the Vista RAID drivers. Vista installed fine with no problem as well, then installed Vista SP1 - No problems so far.

I then went on to installing graphic drivers, nforce drivers. Restarted PC and no problems still, I then install the wireless adapter drivers, which as soon as I get connected to the Internet, downloads some Windows updates. I then install Zone Alarm and AVG Anti-Virus.

(This is the same method I do when re-formatting my computer all the time, and never had any problems)

I now restart and when Vista begins loading, it blue screens with just a STOP error of 0x000007F. That's it, nothing else on the blue screen.

So I put a recovery disk in and it says it fixes a few errors and it still blue screens. The only thing that's different on my PC now is RAID, so on the recovery disk I try loading the drivers again but it says it can't install them.

So today I format it again and do another clean install. Doing the exact same process of installing drivers and software again. I install the Windows updates, but this time leaving the RAID and SATA drivers out, as I thought this could have caused the blue screen last time.

I then restart again and it blue screens with the same STOP error. I did set a system restore checkpoint this time before installing Zone Alarm and AVG, so I will try a restore with the Vista recovery disk after.

Just wanting to know if anyone knows a solution to it?

Cheers,

Unfortunately I do not know what the problem is. But in reading your post, you don't need to install XP first even if your Vista is an 'upgrade'. Install Vista without a key, then insert your vista disk and install as "upgrade" then use your key.

I might have left out a part in there, but you can search the forums or google for clean installing vista with an upgrade disk. It works, thats how I've done my Vista install.

I can't boot with my Vista disk, though. It's a pre-activated Vista upgrade (dunno if being pre-activated makes a difference). I don't mind installing XP first though, I created a slipstream XP SP2 install disk and only takes about 10 mins to install.

Although, maybe the XP and Vista RAID drivers are conflicting with each other. Or does anyone know if they overwrite when installed?

It shouldn't, after I posted I thought my post was pretty unnecessary because I think Vista doesn't do an 'upgrade' like XP 2k ME 98 did, it actually clean installs the OS and then sort of imports the stuff from the old OS. So no, XP drivers shouldn't be causing any of your problems in Vista.

Okay, that was really wierd. I thought I'd give the recovery disk a try, although it failed to solve the problem last night. I ran it and clicked "Repair my Computer" and it had seen the PC had failed to boot, so started solving problems. At the end I read the diagnosis report and at the bottom, it said "A patch is preventing Windows booting" and that a restore was a solution, so restarted comp and it booted up fine in to Vista.