cannot install vista public beta 2 x86

Please can someone help me, I am going crazy here trying to get this beta to install.
Firat of all, I have read most of the threads here, and tried the suggestions as I am seeing all the errors I seem to be getting.
I will try and list all the errors as I remember them happening which hopefully may shed some light for you.
First attempt to install was an upgrade over XP Home edition (factory install) DVD booted fine, I had already installed and ran the upgrade assistant first of all and passed. The install got to what I would guess about 96% complete and rebooted, then all I had was black screen with the loading bar, I waited and waited and waited some more, over three hours in fact, then decided to reboot the machine manually.
It then said windows setup was not completed successfully and your original setup will be restored (or words to that effect)
But it then said that a rollback could not be performed so I had to format the drive.
So attempt #2 was fresh install on newly formatted drive, again DVD booted fine from the reboot and began to copy the windows files, this time it got to about 50% of copying the files and gave a memory address error, I rang a techy collgue of mine who said it may be one of my sticks of ram and I should try taking one of them out during the install.
So I did this for attempt #3 one stick of ram out another formatting of the drive, same error but at a different stage, this time around the 76% mark, so I figured it could be the other stick of ram, so attempt #4 was under way.
Now this time I thought I was onto a winner, all the windows files were copied then it started to expand files, after a few seconds of this I got yet another error, this time it said unable to locate windows image file.
So after this I remastered my machine back to factory settings, and searched on here for answers, I saw many people having similar issues to myself and tried other ways of installing.
I tried to install from the ISO using a virtual drive, this time I got there was a problem while laying down the image files.
I also had the 8000 errors a couple of times.
After reading replies about burning the DVD at a slower speed I thought I would try my disk on another pc, which I did and it installed perfectly first time out, so obviously the dvd is fine.
I dont know what else to do, please if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.
Here is the spec of my PC for reference.
Intel P4 Prescott 550 3.4ghz HT 1024 DDR2 Ram 2x 200 gb Samsung SATA HD's LiteOn DVD/RW LiteOn DVD Rom 600 watt PSU

I don't have time to tell you how much trouble I had installng, except that your post sounds very familiar. Here is what finally worked for me: I copied the contents of the installation DVD to a folder in the root directory of a functioning Windows XP machine, and then ran the Vista setup.exe from that folder under XP. That did not work at first, when I tried the upgrade option, but when I tried the "custom" option it worked perfectly. The result is not exactly a clean install because the old files and data are still there and can be accessed, but its not exactly what you would call an upgrade either, because all my programs became inoperable and had to be reinstalled to work. XP also no longer works when you do this. I would not try this on a computer that I actually needed to do anything useful, but you know that already!
Good luck!
"Lee Burrows" wrote:

Please can someone help me, I am going crazy here trying to get this beta to install.
Firat of all, I have read most of the threads here, and tried the suggestions as I am seeing all the errors I seem to be getting.
I will try and list all the errors as I remember them happening which hopefully may shed some light for you.
First attempt to install was an upgrade over XP Home edition (factory install) DVD booted fine, I had already installed and ran the upgrade assistant first of all and passed. The install got to what I would guess about 96% complete and rebooted, then all I had was black screen with the loading bar, I waited and waited and waited some more, over three hours in fact, then decided to reboot the machine manually.
It then said windows setup was not completed successfully and your original setup will be restored (or words to that effect)
But it then said that a rollback could not be performed so I had to format the drive.
So attempt #2 was fresh install on newly formatted drive, again DVD booted fine from the reboot and began to copy the windows files, this time it got to about 50% of copying the files and gave a memory address error, I rang a techy collgue of mine who said it may be one of my sticks of ram and I should try taking one of them out during the install.
So I did this for attempt #3 one stick of ram out another formatting of the drive, same error but at a different stage, this time around the 76% mark, so I figured it could be the other stick of ram, so attempt #4 was under way.
Now this time I thought I was onto a winner, all the windows files were copied then it started to expand files, after a few seconds of this I got yet another error, this time it said unable to locate windows image file.
So after this I remastered my machine back to factory settings, and searched on here for answers, I saw many people having similar issues to myself and tried other ways of installing.
I tried to install from the ISO using a virtual drive, this time I got there was a problem while laying down the image files.
I also had the 8000 errors a couple of times.
After reading replies about burning the DVD at a slower speed I thought I would try my disk on another pc, which I did and it installed perfectly first time out, so obviously the dvd is fine.
I dont know what else to do, please if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.
Here is the spec of my PC for reference.
Intel P4 Prescott 550 3.4ghz HT 1024 DDR2 Ram 2x 200 gb Samsung SATA HD's LiteOn DVD/RW LiteOn DVD Rom 600 watt PSU

Try this:
copy the contents of the Vista installation DVD to a folder in the root directory of a functioning Win XP machine and run the Vista setup.exe from there. It will say there is no DVD inserted, but just tell it to ignore. When you get to the option of "upgrade" v "custom", choose "custom" as if you were doing a clean install from the DVD. Vista then replaces XP. It worked for me after all else failed.
"Lee Burrows" wrote:

Please can someone help me, I am going crazy here trying to get this beta to install.
Firat of all, I have read most of the threads here, and tried the suggestions as I am seeing all the errors I seem to be getting.
I will try and list all the errors as I remember them happening which hopefully may shed some light for you.
First attempt to install was an upgrade over XP Home edition (factory install) DVD booted fine, I had already installed and ran the upgrade assistant first of all and passed. The install got to what I would guess about 96% complete and rebooted, then all I had was black screen with the loading bar, I waited and waited and waited some more, over three hours in fact, then decided to reboot the machine manually.
It then said windows setup was not completed successfully and your original setup will be restored (or words to that effect)
But it then said that a rollback could not be performed so I had to format the drive.
So attempt #2 was fresh install on newly formatted drive, again DVD booted fine from the reboot and began to copy the windows files, this time it got to about 50% of copying the files and gave a memory address error, I rang a techy collgue of mine who said it may be one of my sticks of ram and I should try taking one of them out during the install.
So I did this for attempt #3 one stick of ram out another formatting of the drive, same error but at a different stage, this time around the 76% mark, so I figured it could be the other stick of ram, so attempt #4 was under way.
Now this time I thought I was onto a winner, all the windows files were copied then it started to expand files, after a few seconds of this I got yet another error, this time it said unable to locate windows image file.
So after this I remastered my machine back to factory settings, and searched on here for answers, I saw many people having similar issues to myself and tried other ways of installing.
I tried to install from the ISO using a virtual drive, this time I got there was a problem while laying down the image files.
I also had the 8000 errors a couple of times.
After reading replies about burning the DVD at a slower speed I thought I would try my disk on another pc, which I did and it installed perfectly first time out, so obviously the dvd is fine.
I dont know what else to do, please if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.
Here is the spec of my PC for reference.
Intel P4 Prescott 550 3.4ghz HT 1024 DDR2 Ram 2x 200 gb Samsung SATA HD's LiteOn DVD/RW LiteOn DVD Rom 600 watt PSU

Thanks I will try that
"RW" wrote:

Try this:
copy the contents of the Vista installation DVD to a folder in the root directory of a functioning Win XP machine and run the Vista setup.exe from there. It will say there is no DVD inserted, but just tell it to ignore. When you get to the option of "upgrade" v "custom", choose "custom" as if you were doing a clean install from the DVD. Vista then replaces XP. It worked for me after all else failed.
"Lee Burrows" wrote:
Please can someone help me, I am going crazy here trying to get this beta to install.
Firat of all, I have read most of the threads here, and tried the suggestions as I am seeing all the errors I seem to be getting.
I will try and list all the errors as I remember them happening which hopefully may shed some light for you.
First attempt to install was an upgrade over XP Home edition (factory install) DVD booted fine, I had already installed and ran the upgrade assistant first of all and passed. The install got to what I would guess about 96% complete and rebooted, then all I had was black screen with the loading bar, I waited and waited and waited some more, over three hours in fact, then decided to reboot the machine manually.
It then said windows setup was not completed successfully and your original setup will be restored (or words to that effect)
But it then said that a rollback could not be performed so I had to format the drive.
So attempt #2 was fresh install on newly formatted drive, again DVD booted fine from the reboot and began to copy the windows files, this time it got to about 50% of copying the files and gave a memory address error, I rang a techy collgue of mine who said it may be one of my sticks of ram and I should try taking one of them out during the install.
So I did this for attempt #3 one stick of ram out another formatting of the drive, same error but at a different stage, this time around the 76% mark, so I figured it could be the other stick of ram, so attempt #4 was under way.
Now this time I thought I was onto a winner, all the windows files were copied then it started to expand files, after a few seconds of this I got yet another error, this time it said unable to locate windows image file.
So after this I remastered my machine back to factory settings, and searched on here for answers, I saw many people having similar issues to myself and tried other ways of installing.
I tried to install from the ISO using a virtual drive, this time I got there was a problem while laying down the image files.
I also had the 8000 errors a couple of times.
After reading replies about burning the DVD at a slower speed I thought I would try my disk on another pc, which I did and it installed perfectly first time out, so obviously the dvd is fine.
I dont know what else to do, please if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.
Here is the spec of my PC for reference.
Intel P4 Prescott 550 3.4ghz HT 1024 DDR2 Ram 2x 200 gb Samsung SATA HD's LiteOn DVD/RW LiteOn DVD Rom 600 watt PSU