Problems reinstalling Vista

My laptop was acting up so I decided to restore to factory image. Apparently sometime during this process it overheated and shut off. I knew if didn't finish so I did it again but this time it did not overheat. Everything was going fine until the very end. After it installed the programs a window popped up saying "Windows could not complete the installation. To install windows on this computer, restart the installation." Ok, no big probelm. I restarted and tried again. But I continue to get the same error message.

Is there something wrong with windows on my computer? Would buying vista from the store and installing it from the disc fix this? Or is there a hardware problem considering it overheats? Any help would be great

And I have an HP Pavilion dv7 with vista64 premium. Thanks

Reply 1 : Problems reinstalling Vista

I would suspect you either have some bad RAM or a bad HDD. Maybe both, but more likely you have some bad RAM.

Use the computer you're using to read this message and download a copy of memtest86+ and let it run overnight on that computer. If you see ANY errors at all, you have bad RAM, and then you'll want to pull all the RAM out save one stick. Test that for a while, if it passes, put in another stick, rinse and repeat until you find the bad one.

If by chance the system is still under warranty, make it HP's problem to fix. More people need to start holding computer vendor's feet to the fire when they ship a shoddy product. Acer and HP would probably be driven out of the PC business if every customer exercised their rights under the warranty.

Reply 2 : Problems reinstalling Vista

Thanks for the replies guys!

Jim,
I'm not sure if running memtest86+ would work in my case. I can restore my computer once before it over heats so I'm sure it wouldn't last the night. Looks like I'll have to take it to a local repair shop but before I do I will trying running that program.

Thanks again guys.

Reply 3 : Problems reinstalling Vista

That's never good as corruption can occur anywhere on the HDD. The overheat is a BAD SIGN the machine needs repair. Unless you didn't tell us the machine was sitting on the bed with the vents blocked.

Last ideas? Use the canned air to clean up the vents and then use the RESTORE MEDIA you made and not the disk to disk restore.

Find out why it overheated!
Bob