Can't install Vista from CD..?

[WhoAteMyCheese]

In continuation from this thread here:

forums.hexus.net/scan-care-hexus-after-sales-support/183997-black-screen-nothing.html

I got my PC working so many thanks to rabbid for the advice. But everytime I booted I kept getting ntfs.sys errors, but sometimes it would boot fine so I would keep trying. Needless to say this didn't last and now it wont boot up at all, just goes to blue screen dumping and then restarts in and endless cycle.

The real problem is I figured I would just flatten and reinstall Vista but when I boot from the CD it spins, loads all the files, does the Windows logo then the CD drive stops spinning and the screen goes black and the computer idly sits until I power it off.

I have tried using another CD drive and another Vista CD so I can rule these out. Is this a hardware issue? Have I simply killed something?

The other thing is that when I took off my cpu to check it was all in place the heatsink/thermal paste I had applied had pretty much gone and was left with a nasty grey sludge and in some places no paste at all, not sure if this is a relevant point. If you need any more details just ask.

ANY help would be appreciated, I just want to shoot some zombies on left 4 dead!

[kalniel]

Make sure your hard drive is in IDE mode rather than ACHI (via the BIOS) and try installing Vista again.

Could be a dodgy harddrive, or a dodgy motherboard driver, but going to IDE makes things a bit simpler and could be enough to get it working.

[WhoAteMyCheese]

No dice! Sadly I am still suffering from this problem. I have tried another graphics card in case this was the problem as well as several hard drives and even reseating the CPU, which I'm still concerned by how quick the paste/heatsink goes a thick grey colour.

The disc still spins, loads all the drivers, spins the little logo and then the whole thing just sits idly not spinning but the keyboard still lights up and pushing buttons still makes it respond a little but nothing happens and it just stops spinning.

[kalniel]

The computer is stable in BIOS right?

You could try creating a bootCD that runs memtest86 to thoroughly check the RAM/memory controller without loading the OS (which would rule out drivers).

You could also try running linux off a live CD - again that would enable you to test hardware without worrying about windows driver issues.