Dell Vostro 1500 won't load windows

[rkb]

i have a dell vostro 1500 running windows vista and it suddenly began to lock up when booting into windows. it displays the windows logo and then about 7-10 seconds later everything stops and the display freezes w/ the progressing green bar at the bottom. no hard drive activity at that point. i've tried a brand new hard drive and attempting to installing windows 7 on the new (blank) hard drive. the same thing happens but it is a few seconds after the new windows logo comes on screen. again, all activity stops and the screen freezes. any ideas?

 

[wither 3]

It could be a RAM problem. Can you get into safe mode?

 

[tom982]

Hello rkb and welcome to the forums

I'm using a Vostro 1500

When you say you tried a brand new hard drive, did you do a clean install of Windows onto this? Or did you just copy and paste all of the files across?

Tom

 

[rkb]

I actually purchased a new drive and tried to do a new installation of win 7, but the exact same thing happened - it locked up at the new windows logo and everything stopped. I also replaced the ram.

 

[tom982]

It could be a RAM problem. Can you get into safe mode?

What about safe mode?

 

[rkb]

I cannot get to safe mode.

 

[wither 3]

Did you put the RAM sticks into the correct slots?