Vista Hangs During "Finalizing Installation"

I have been googling for the past 2 days in search of a solution to this problem but alas I was unable to find one.

I'm trying to install Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit OEM for a friend of mine but every time the installation gets to the "Finalizing Installation" part, the computer screen goes blank, all hard drive activity ceases after a few minutes and if I restart the machine I am told that the installation was not successful.

I have read that many people have this problem, here are a couple of threads for example...

http://www.realgeek.com/forums/insta...ion-65421.html

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1100480

http://secure.ncix.com/forumpost/dis...readid=1402164




I have tried both installing from scratch via boot from CD, and I have tried installing through Windows XP Home SP2. Attempted install on 2 different formatted hard drives with the same results.

I would really appreciate any help with this,

Thanks in advance,

-O

System Specs:

Intel P4 2.6Ghz
2x1GB Corsair XMS PC-3200
6600GT vid card
Maxtor 80GB 5200RPM HD

Anything else at all in that PC that might be stopping the install? Any add-in cards, modems, sound cards, external drives - anything at all like that?

Also, did you try it with only one stick of RAM like one of those forums suggested? Even the most illogical things work sometimes.