Windows 7 does not boot from first restart during clean install

I have had the exact same result with Win7 final RC as well as Win7 Ultimate install attempts. The hardware is brand new Asus 785 Chipset mother board (Kit from AMD/Microsoft Seminar with Win 7 Ultimate NFR) with AMD Phenom II x4. I've got Win XP 64bit running just fine on this system using another HD as a test of the entire system. Only a single hard drive is connected during the testing and install.

DVD boots up fine and begins to intall Win 7 64bit. Then when it attempts very first re-boot during the installation it hangs. I've swapped out hard drives -with no change in outcome. There is no question that the motherboard, RAM, DVD drive etc. are all working fine. This must be some weird compatibility problem. I have attempted the installation 3 times with Win 7RC and with the working final release of Win 7 Ultimate 4 times -with the same hangup on the first re-boot.

R

The hard drives are partitioned and formatted with Acronis Disk Director -is this the source of the problem?

I've been so disgusted by wasting so much time I have not done anything more for over 2 weeks now. In my 15 plus years of building and repairing PC's I have not seen anything like this (except possibly during the earliest days of DOS to Windows transition).

These are my next steps:

I can try to have Win7 format the partition.

In case this is a 64bit problem, I can try to install Win7 32 bit -but I am building 64 bit machines w 8Gb RAM so even if this works, it's not something that interests me.

I have not tried the install on another computer, but that would be next (but I have to get Win 7 working with new hardware not old stuff -that's part of my business).

Any other suggestions? Anyone else experience this problem?

Thanks,

Dan

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