Lockup on Re-install! HELP Please!!

[eipeks]

System is...

AMD x64 +4800 Dual Core.
3 GB Pc3200 RAM
80GB HDD (samsung I think)
Gigabyte K8N-SLI


I've Installed Vista on this thing before but reverted back to XP since then. I got a nasty virus about 3 months ago and had to reformat. Ever since then, my reinstalls have taken forever!! Both vista AND XP. The XP one is really strange, because usually it takes about 30 minutes but now it seems to take well over an hour!!!!
Ive even flashed my BIOS just to be sure.

I am currently trying to put Vista back on, and it seems to be freezing up and the "Completing installation..." part after everything is installed.

Could this be a hardware issue? Please point me in the right direction, thanks.

 

[KSoD]

Do you format the drive when doing the reinstalls? If so do you use the Vista drive format option? If so that could be the problem. That is only a quick format which is never suggested. It would be best to use GParted and format the drive fully and not with the quick format that Vista provides.

 

[eipeks]

Ok, Ill try Gparted first.

So while I was downloading Gparted, I had an idea from another post with the same problem.

In the other post, the guy had to remove his Firewire card before the install would work.

Since I didn't have a firewire card, I decided to remove my sound card.....

Creative Labs Audigy Z2. Guess what....the install completed.

I remembered I had gotten that card after I had already installed Vista the first time around.

 

[KSoD]

Try a different PCI slot for the sound card. That means there is a IRQ conflict.