Dell Vista upgrade won't boot up

Maybe you should boot form your Vista DVD...

 

When your system starts up... at the dell logo, click con F12 or whatever it says at the top as Boot Order..

 

Now choose start from Cd or DVD dirve.. or something lke it..

 

Hope it helps

The install will fail if you boot to the dvd. You must start the upgrade from within a qualifying windows installation. Boot to XP or Vista and run Setup on the dvd.

I am not able to boot from within Windows.  I get the installation error, which I mentioned in my first post.  The only way I can get into the computer is to boot from the Windows Vista Installation DVD.

 

When I did this, a window appeared, which said, Install Windows.  When I clicked on Install now, the upgrade option was grayed out and only the clean install option was available.  I do not want to choose this option, because I do not want to lose my data.

 

So, I restarted the computer, booting from the DVD.  At the window, which says Install Windows, I selected startup repair.  There were 2 system recovery options: Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Setup Rollback.  When I choose the first, it takes a long time and has not come up with anything.  I am leaving it to run all night.  When I chose the second option, it gave the following message:

 

Start up repair cannot repair this computer automatically.

 

Problem signature:

Problem event name:                  StartupRepairV2

Problem signature 01:                 ExternalMedia

Problem signature 02:                 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6000.16386

Problem signature 03:                 0

Problem signature 04:                 65537

Problem signature 05:                 unknown

Problem signature 06:                 FailureDuringSetup

Problem signature 07:                 0

Problem signature 08:                 0

Problem signature 09:                 unknown

Problem signature 10:                 1168

OS version:                                6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1

Locale ID:                                  1033

 

I think I should also tell you that I have a RAID system on my E520.  I don't know if this affects the installation.  I have not backed up my data to an external source.  I hope that when the computer is able to boot up, I will be able to access my back-up files on the RAID hard drive.

 

Thank you for your help.

"The install will fail if you boot to the dvd. You must start the upgrade from within a qualifying windows installation. Boot to XP or Vista and run Setup on the dvd."

 

That's not completeley true...

 

As many here have proved...

 

You CAN boot up to and clean install Vista normally (without the Paul Thurrot trick) from the Dell Vista upgrade DVD...

 

As to the E520 problem.. I'm not able to help then...

 

Hope you fix up your Windows...

Make sure your RAID is set to autodetect in the BIOS.

 

pcgeek11

xchekox, you can only do a CUSTOM install by booting from the CD. "Upgrade" installs can only be done inside the OS.

 

Shenan, when the computer first starts up, immediately after the Delll screen, you should briefly see the option Windows Setup Rollback for about 3 seconds. Select that, and the system should go back to XP.

Thank you, thank you, PenguinsPenguins!!

 

It worked.  It was able to rollback to XP, where it will stay for the foreseeable future.

 

Thank you, again!!!

Hey there Shenan,Just wondering if you got anymore info on the problem you were having as I recently purchased a dimension E521 with Home Basic installed and I am trying to upgrade to ultimate and I am getting the problems as you had...would appreciate it if you could help or any1 else for that matter

Hey Maximus

 

I'm sorry, I stuck with XP, so don't have any experience of upgrading Vista.