Vista on W3J hack. translated article

This is a short translation of a dutch article on how to get vista running on a w3j. The original article can be found here;
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/1139759

The problem is that MS Vista cannot boot because of the current Asus W3J BIOS which reboots when a certain TPM call is made. This problem is both know at Microsoft and Asus and will hopefully be fixed soon by releasing a proper w3j BIOS.

I do not take any responsibility for this.
Please make a backup because you can wipe a harddisk when you're doing it wrong. I did try this procedure and it worked for me. Also I do not provide support for this, as its a "hack" someone else created. I am only trying to translate it.It did find that dualbooting to windows xp was flaky at times. Sometimes Windows XP could not boot and needed a couple of hardresets

The workaround is using a reversed enginered vista bootloader which has this call patched out and an interrupt handler installed to catch other OS calls to it. Vista writes this bootloader twice during the installation procedure.

Get the bootloader here; http://www.thorry.net/asus/vistafix_mbr.bin
(I created a mirror for it here; http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=188526)
And get Winimage here; http://www.winimage.com/download.htm
Make a bootable CD with BartPE; http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/


-test that you can boot the BartPE cd and access the winmage tools and bootloader (place them for example on a USB key), you'll need them later on
-Open notepad and enter some text. This is to prevent Vista from rebooting when it is finished
-Start the Vista installation/upgrade under Windows XP.
-Now the open notepad program is preventing the reboot press cancel to supress the reboot.
-start winimage to write the hacked bootloader
-Goto menu "disk" "edit master boot record properties"
-Enable the checkbox "include non removable disks"
-Select your harddisk
-Press import, en select the bootloader "vistafix_mbr.bin"
-Press yes and reboot to continue the vista setup

-Setup will continue after the reboot
-After the setup has finished it will reboot and fail because Vista has yet again written a new bootloader
-Now take that BartPE CD and boot from it, with your usbstick which includes winimage and the vistafix_mbr.bin
-Write the bootloader as done earlier with image
-Reboot and the last part of the setup will complete

 

Although i doubt i'll be doing this myself, certainly not anytime soon, thank you for translating and summarising these instructions

 

Yes, thanks a lot for translating this. I spent some time trying to figure that out myself, but failed I might try this in the coming days....

 

Thanks ries, I will be trying it out as soon as I get some time.

 

I tried...it worked.....except that XP will screw up...but well...I'm ready for the switch...

 

Installed, everything but the audio works fine. Need to look for a proper driver now i guess...

 

I think I just downloaded the XP audio driver from the ASUS website and it worked fine under Vista.

 

Yes....when you download and try to run...it will abruptly quit but vista will prompt you about using some other settings to run it...and you will be able to install it..

After reboot...you will get an error prompt..some ADI thing but after that...no more errors! and it works!

 

When you say make a bootable Cd with BartPE, how exactly do you do this?

Thanks

 

can you tell us how to do it step by step?

the procedures you mentioned are pretty vague...

 

If anyone is interested, I think you may be able to load this straight to your HDD without loading XP first, assuming you can initiate the vista install from the cd/dvd. Essentially, you can use Bart PE at any phase of this installation to rewrite the boot sector, without needing to do it from windows initially.

Edit: Nope...tried it and I can't even boot off the CD w/o infinite loop