After numerous install attempts, I finally got to the stage where it says

please wait while windows prepares to start.........

It has sat on that for over 3 hours, so I rebooted, now it's sitting there again.
This is a fresh install, not an upgrade. Any ideas if i should leave it like that till it starts up? How long does it take?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm using a 19" LCD screen and I really don't want the images to burn onto my screen.
Thanks

Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

If you're concerned about "image persistence" on LCDs, you've got nothing to worry about, LCDs are usually impervious to the "burn-in" effect that was popular with CRTs & in any case 3-5 hours of static imagery display isn't going to do any permanent damage to your LCD.

According to this article at below website.......Patience is a virtue.

Uncle Billy knew that people hated long installs.

So what does Microsoft do?

XpUser4Real:I hope it works out well for you.

For those of us who enjoyed installing an
operating system....I guess it has now became work.

The computer shops should rake it in charging by the hour.LOL

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/virtualpc2004.htm

If your worried about the image burning onto your screen by leaving it on for more than 5 hours just shut of the monitor and leave it there all night and see what happens.

I did what needalilhelp suggested and turned off the monitor overnight.

Now, I finally got to the stage of vista where the screen is black and the bar goes across the screen at the bottom....it goes about 6 times and then it stops and that's as far as I get. Looks like it's hanging.

Sure is frustrating trying something new.
Any more ideas?

Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

You mind posting your full system specification?

Sure:
Sony Vaio 2.0 GHz
512 DDR
80GB HD
onboard sound
That's about all I can think of, as I can't access anything on the PC right now untill I get the HD working. It's just a stock PC
PCV-RX752

Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

I already installed Vista 3-4 times, took me about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 each time. I must say though that each time was a clean install on a formated hard drive, so i didn't have to wait the usual 30-45 minutes formatting time.

I'm curious, how do you do it?

I'll tell you how i do it;

1-Vista disc already on drive, i boot to go into the bios.

2-Disable the hard drive, and put the dvd-drive 1st to boot, save and exit.

3-Winodws does it's little thing of copying files, and at first re-boot(windows will tell you it has to) i let it start and go to bios again to put hard-drive 1st boot the dvd-drive 2nd. Then the real windows install start, about an hour from there.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm finally giving up on the Vista Installation and buying a new HD to use strictly for vid and photo editing.

I have a feeling that the HD I was using failed me in some way.

Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

LCD screens don't have the ability to have images burned on them. only CRT type monitors.

I never had a problem with beta2 installation at all & the whole process from start to finish took a little over 45 minutes.

"LCD screens don't have the ability to have images burned on them. only CRT type monitors." i have had my computer on for about 4 months now and there no images burning to my crt monitor

Yeah, LCD and CRT screens are impervious to image burning, but beware of Plasmas, the burn, and quikly. My WinXP upgrade to Vista took me about 6 hours and my comp specs:
Intel Pentum 4 2.0Ghz
1.0Gb Sdram
80Gb Seagate Hard drive IDE
200Gb Maxtor Hard drive IDE
500Gb Maxtor Hard drive IDE
Asus PB4 socket 478
ATI Radeon 9600
DVD-RW drive
and some other minute things

But I gotta tell you, it's very s-l-o-w. My CPU is working at full every second, and I cant even turn it off!! ahh!!

And WinXP loaded up quickly. I think its software compatability issues.

http://rhs08.com
Got root?

My Vista is on AMD Sempron 1.1Ghz 100GB HD 512MB SDRAM and my CPU is only being used half percent took about 10 hours to install tho.

Mmmmm.....So I'll wait a few years after M$ releases it.

http://rhs08.com
Got root?