tommaso

according to my experience you have no chance at all... Usually recovery cd/dvd contains special drivers developed specifically for the hardware manufacturer in a specified configuration. There is no way they are goin to restore a custom made pc...

well, I had to reactivate because of this... oddly enough! I noticed that with Vista 64 my iTunes couldn't detect cd burner anymore and does not allow me tu burn my cd. This looks like a very common problem "http://www.emergingearth.com/itunes-7-cant-burn-cds" as you can see... Luckily someone found the solution in here "http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070714011213AAmyyEd" , this was the problem "The issue appears to be with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista (and XP apparently), and the fact that a version of the third-party driver that iTunes uses to burn CDs and DVDs will not interact correctly with 64-bit OSes. This is characterized by an Error code 2380 when you run CD/DVD diagnostics in iTunes. The third party driver is known as gearsec.exe, and the solution is to download the correct 64-bit version, direct from GearSoft: http://www.gearsoftware.com/support/driv..." Guess what happened? Yes, Vista detects the cd burner "under a new light" and recognize a "major changment" in your hardware setup... Reactivation needed!

Is not that I disagree with you, but in Italy MS does not provide suppor 24/7... Actually, I'm plenty of time until tomorrow morning at 9

Hi everyone, first I'd like to state that I am firmly against piracy, I only buy original software & music as well. I have bought my original Win Vista 64x with the hardware components I needed to build my own PC. Here's what's happened: I noticed that with Vista 64 my iTunes couldn't detect cd burner anymore and does not allow me tu burn my cd. This looks like a very common problem "http://www.emergingearth.com/itunes-7-cant-burn-cds" as you can see... Luckily someone found the solution in here "http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070714011213AAmyyEd" , this was the problem "The issue appears to be with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista (and XP apparently), and the fact that a version of the third-party driver that iTunes uses to burn CDs and DVDs will not interact correctly with 64-bit OSes. This is characterized by an Error code 2380 when you run CD/DVD diagnostics in iTunes. The third party driver is known as gearsec.exe, and the solution is to download the correct 64-bit version, direct from GearSoft: http://www.gearsoftware.com/support/driv..." Guess what happened? Yes, Vista detects the cd burner "under a new light" and recognize a "major changment" in your hardware setup... This will lock my OS from 2 days from now until I do not manage to put my hands over a new product key (and no, I'm not gonna waste any more money, I already bought my orignal copy) or to contact MS support... This is simply not possible. I can even agree with anti-piracy software but, dammit MS should "tune-up" the way it detects any chang made on my hardware! I mean, I keep running the the same cpu, mobo, hdd, graphics and audio card!!! And what if I decide to turn on SLI and add another video card? Another product key or other tons of time wasted with MS? I'm sorry but if my problem will not be solved by MS support in 48hrs, this is the time I will switch to Linux. I am just sorry for my gaming life. But I'd prefer to spend my free time gaming rather than losing my time with supid MS requests!

Just to tell you how the journey ends... From yesterday new "certified" drivers are available on nVidia webpage (http://www.nvidia.it/object/winvista_x64_162.22_it.html) for 590/570 chipset based mobo (Intel & AMD) and 64x based Vista OS. Well, I tried them and they do work for me. That said, even if I cannot prove it, I have the suspect that Win Update downloaded a generic version (or is unable to recognize if you're using an Intel or AMD based mobo or worse installs the 32bit version on x64...) Anyway, try them from nVidia and remember to choose wisefully what you download from Win Update

TK you techtype, maybe my googling was not so good as yours

LOL - ok I won't

The drivers there are tested - they're likely also certified. However, if they don't work for you, contact the manufacturer and raise hell if need be - certified drivers should work properly. If they don't, make sure the vendor knows about it, or they'll continue writing drivers that don't work properly on your hardware! well they dont work alot of ppl. and the driver isnt even on the nvidia website... i ended up using the official nvidia driver from a few months ago and vista works fine now. I noticed isn't on nvidia website... I had to reinstall previous drivers on safemode to fix things... But now looks like Win Update detects a new version of those "strange" nvidia drivers... What shall I do?

So you experienced my same problem. Probably I got it worse because of the RAID setup. I blocked Win Update after last crash... Do you think it could be safe to install those download now?

Why should MS test NVIDIA's driver? It should be NVIDIA that enusres their driver works correctly with the OS. then MS should not certify it as a WHQL!

Sorry if I stuck in this post but... As far as I run a x64 Vista (2 Gb RAM @ 800Mhz) and I noticed that Vista tend to use something like 30-35% of my RAM all the times, is it a good idea to upgrade to 3 or 4 Gb? TK you

ermmmm... did you install both OS on the same partition, is that right? What OS is currently loading now? I really do not know if you can have them all in the same partition and run both fine... But, try to give us more info, please

The drivers there are tested - they're likely also certified. However, if they don't work for you, contact the manufacturer and raise hell if need be - certified drivers should work properly. If they don't, make sure the vendor knows about it, or they'll continue writing drivers that don't work properly on your hardware! Well, I will write them a nasty letter today!

I don't know if you know an old italian way of saying "any news, good news" but I just invented another "no windows updates are the only good updates" It's the 2nd time in ten days that Vista Win Updates cripple my OS, leaving me no alternatives than reinstalling the OS (oh and I guess very soon MS will accuse me of piracy because of that...) I am talking about 3 of the latest updates available that refers to Win Vista certified drivers for mobo based on nVidia chipset 590/570 and, in particular, nvidia RAID controllers and SATA drivers. You know well that when we talk about HD we talk about our precious data. Carefulness is adviceable. I'd like to state, too, that Vista was running fine with nVidia oldest drivers but as far as Win Update settings allows it to download "important" updates, looks like there is not much to do except disabling it... So, that said, every **** time Win Update downloads these **** drivers, my OS freezes on the first reboot and subsequentially becomes very unstable and hard drives seems to go on constant loop worsening performance and bringing to frequent lockups. I tried everything, from restoring the OS to rollingback drivers... Nothing seems to work and I know I will spend this night reinstalling the OS... Watch carefully what Win Updates download in your OS, I am pretty sure, no one tests it. Ever.

First thing we need to know, is what will be the main OS you intend to use, I mean, what will you put on C:\ ? What will you install first, or do you already have one installed? Then I suggest to keep at hand an utility that allows you to easily enable multiboot and "EasyBCD" is the best application to achieve this. But before you move a single finger, please have a printout of these two amazing "how-to's" , they worked great for me: http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

Dear dcyphure, actually the only thing I like of Vista is that it seems to recognize RAID configurations during installation. You won't need mobo drivers (keep them handy tough, you'll never know...) nor nlite, just your OS cd. Eventually, you will encounter lots of troubles "after" the installation. I run a RAID 0 conf, with WD and a nvidia chipset 590 mobo. Well, this is the second time in ten days that I have to reinstall Vista because Microsoft just released its WHQL drivers for nvidia raid controllers... Well, my suggestion is, JUST STICK TO THE ORIGINAL DRIVERS AND WATCH WHAT WINDOWS UPDATE TRIES TO INSTALL ON YOUR OS! MS drivers are crippled and send my RAID 0 in loop... So again, tonite, I will reinstall the OS, as that is the only things I am left to do... *sighs*

I couldn't roll back updates as the updates prevented Vista to load... and could only re-install the OS... Anyway today I found a solution, made a try and "updated" Vista by launching the OS setup cd from Vista itself... I would have called that a "repair" but Vista calls it "upgrade". OS backuped itself then downloaded updates during this operation and reinstalled some files (didn't told me what files...) The process was very long, lasted one hour and a half, maybe two. After reboot I just had to re-install sound card drivers but everything was there where I left it and... Windows Update works again But I strongly suggest you to stick to high-priority updates and let the others out of your OS until it keeps working good!

Thank you for your hint - unluckily it didn't work... And Vista reg looks different from XP and I don't want to mess with it. No need to tell you that MS support have not answered me yet

On the 27/06/2007 I downloaded and installed latest Vista updates (and amongst them there was the long awaited Vista Certified driver for MB running chipset nvidia 590 which I do have...) and the only result after restarting the PC was a corrupted "hive" and the impossibility to reboot. After many tries, I decided to re-install the OS (restoring it brought to nothing except running a crippled and unstable Vista who kept crashing every 2 mins or so...). Reinstalling went almost fine tough the OS froze once while installing sound card but then everything ran fine except... for auto-updates! Vista is not autoupdating anymore, when I check Windows Update, it returns an unspecified error n. 80070490 "IMPOSSIBLE TO SEARCH FOR UPDATES". The error is not reported in the guide, I sent an email to MS tech support and they disappeared after answering that the issue would be solved in 24hrs... I tried to reset the Win Update service and to restore the SoftwareDistribution folder but nothing is changed. So I am now stuck with a "basic" version of Vista Home Premium. As you can easily guess, I need some help... Everything was running perfect before the 27/06/2007 updates... System Specs attached: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600 @ 2,94 Ghz ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (nVidia 590 chipset) NVIDIA GTX 8800 CREATIVE X-Fi Extreme Gamer 2 x WD3200AAKS RAID 0 Thx for your help!

First of all, let me thanx Fernando for this guide. Whithout him I would be stuck forever. Now I will post my successful experience, and *ONLY* the successful one. This do not mean that I made at the first try. Things went wrong lots of times but I hope this can help anyone with the same problem. I used my new mobo, an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, based on the nVidia Nforce 590 chipset and two Western Digital Caviar II HDD in RAID 0 configuration and the latest release of nVidia drivers (9.35). I used a WinXP SP 0 version as "base" to build my new setup cd with Nlite and the latest Nlite version (1.3) available. First of all, in the same Nlite session, I slipstreamed a clean SP2 (i.e. without OS) in the SP0 folder. Then I integrated *ONLY* (this was very important!!!) textmode SATARAID drivers (one by one and not together). I have *NOT* instegrated the SATA_IDE drivers even if you will need it soon after the OS installation, nor I have integrated any other driver. I created the ISO image and then I've burn it into a CD-RW with the same Nlite 1.3 burner (other tries with Nero resulted in an unreadable setup cd around the 75-83% of XP setup drivers copy). Now, here we are. The brand new setup cd detects nVidia RAID controllers and let you install XP SP2 even if you won't be sure that all will be right until the very end of the setup process. After the first installation, XP was still a lot unstable. I strongly suggest to "re-run" a new Nforce Drivers Setup within the OS to overwrite RAID controllers and install fresh SATA_IDE drivers. Also, do not try to install eventual other components detcted by the OS (like audio cards, etc.) before Nforce drivers. Now all works and it's alive and well but I was lost without this guide. Thanks again Fernando, it's because of people like you that communities like this will grow stronger and stronger. Thank you.

Thank you, I'll try this weekend without audiocard, then I'll search for a SP2-native cd. Obviously enough, I always run default BIOS options while installing OSs. I'll let you know. Thanx a lot!!!

Hi Fernando, I'm really tryin'not to disturb you, because I found your guide very useful, clear and well-written, too. But as far as my problem goes on, I just feel the need to tell you my "story", 'cause I want to understand what's happening to my new PC. Here are the tech specs: AMD 64 X2 5600+ ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (nVidia 590 chipset) 2 x 1Gb CORSAIR Dominator DDR2 6400c4 EPP ASUS Nvidia GF8800GTX Creative X-Fi Gamer and 2 x WESTERN DIGITAL WD3200YS 320Gb SATA2 in RAID 0 (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=233&language=en) This is meant to be my high-end new PC, I assembled it myself just as I did with every PC I owned. One last introduction: From the first moment the PC was ready, I was unable to install Win XP because of the problems I will soon describe, so I tried VISTA 64 that works great with RAID 0... But let's get back to XP. There is no way to install XP with the "F6 + floppy" method, cause the installation freezes when it should detect the HDD. So I checked for a solution and got on your great post. Hooray, I partitioned the RAID-under-vista disk in two (C:/ vista and D:/ where XP should go...and I know I'm goin' to face other problems with the boot.ini there but ot's another story...) and "nlited" the Nvidia RAID drivers in the XP cdrom (I only got the SP1 cd so I had to slipstream SP2 into it together with nvidia drivers). Wow, It works. Booting the system from the nlited XPcd, it finally detect the RAID HDD and the two partitions!!! Then in the very moment I have to choose on which partition XP have to go, I realized that the installation is frozen again... Now I feel I'm stuck. I'm an hardcore gamer and (after a slight overclok) I really need to have a dual-boot PC with XP. I tried a couple of new games on Vista 64 and even patched they crash again and again... Bad bad bad XP, what I have to do with you?!?!?