apparently i'm not the only one
"After first restart, I can't get past the loading screen
I recently bought the retail copy of Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade. I
ran the installation and choose the clean install. Everything seemed to be
working right until it restarted for the first time (this is part of the
setup) It restarted and went into a loading screen similar to the one for
Windows XP. The problem is that it stays on this screen and never progresses.
I've even left it on for several hours with no result.
If I try to run from the Windows Vista CD it loads files then goes into the
loading screen also.
I ran the Upgrade adviser and everything checked out fine.
My system specs are:
Intel Core 2 duo 2.17GHz
ATI Radeon x1700 Pro
Intel motherboard
2 GBs of RAM
one IDE HD
"
http://www.tutorials-ne.com/vistasetup/Hang-during/