I replaced my ancient 20gb HDD with a brand new 500gb seagate yesterday. Today I tried installing vista/7 , but couldn't. the install in each case got stuck

I tried 3 different disks , 2 windows 7 dvds and one vista dvd. The strange thing is that the install gets stuck at the name place with all the dvds!

I get the initial "windows is loading file", then the "starting windows" message. Then comes the nice vistaish background . and thats where the install gets stuck. no window shows up The mouse is present and can be moved. HDD/cdrom lights aren't blinking..

The disks work fine on other PC's.

I don't understand what could be the problem with my PC. I tried resetting the bios, that didn't help. could the new HDD be the problem ? I have managed to install win7 on my old 20gb HDD

Otherwise my PC runs just fine

Specs: AMD X2 4000

1 gb ram

samsung dvd-rw

asus m2a-mx mobo

seagate 500gb HDD

win xp sp3

Definitely could. Maybe it's hitting a bad sector when it gets to that point in setup.

Did it come with any diagnostic utilities you could run on the drive?

I would expect the Harddisk too, but test it in another system too.

Also, if not already done, try the latest BIOS update.

M2A-MX BIOS 0802

Add SSID to distinguish IDE mode, AHCI mode and RAID mode.

If your BIOS is older than 0802, I would for sure blame the BIOS first...

I agree with the BIOS update. We have some notebooks that lock up installing Vista unless a certain BIOS version is installed.

Yup I always install the latest BIOS on any mobo I have, even if the changes in later versions do not effect me as it is always good to know the BIOS is up to date and in most cases you won't need another update later on down the track if the board is already a few years old as they probably stopped making newer versions. Anyway do that first!

And if you are worried about updating the BIOS, some companies (like Intel) have a revision document to say what was fixed in the newer versions.