Installation Woes
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I just installed the final release of vista hoping that most of the bugs I have experienced will have been fixed. But... ... what a friggin pain it was to install. My previous install was via the XP OS onto a seperate HD. I have now eliminated XP and run only vista. Here is where the problems start. I deleted the XP partition from the vista boot disk and combined it with another partition. This particular disk is SATA1, I also have an IDE1 and an external USB HD. First problem, the installation manager detects the USB disk ( to which I am NOT installing ) along with the other two. But gives the "cannot find valid system file on specified drive" for every partition. Point to note, if you have an external drive, disable it before attempting to install. Second problem, because I deleted the existing windows partition the boot sector was also removed. This shouldn't be a problem because windows should create a new boot sector. For some reason, this poses a problem to vista. It copies and expands the files, but when it comes to rebooting half way through the install the bios cannot find a boot sector. I thought this was a bios problem and spent a great deal of time trying to configure it correctly. I ended up using the XP CD to do a partial install. Third problem, due to having to use the XP CD, I created a second partition and left the first as unallocated. The boot sector was written to the second by XP, and remained there for vista. ie vista on C: bootsect on D:. Booting into vista, first thing I wanted to do was remove that temporary partition ( D ). Vista will not allow you to delete or format that drive. I again reverted to the XP CD to do this ( knowing the boot sector would dissapear again ). The vista CD has a "repair windows" option which I think was excellent. It took just a few seconds to write the bootsector to drive C: AND to restore the deleted partition ( which I could now safely remove ). Fourth problem, as mentioned I have one SATA drive and one IDE drive. My bios allows me to configure which is the first ( where to find the bootsector ), but vista doesn't like having that sector written to another drive. This may be a bios configuration problem. There were no problems trying to install XP but vista refused to boot. Simple solution, pull out the IDE cable for that drive while installing. Fifth problem, the vista boot CD comes with a drive managing utility. You are able to delete, create and format partitions during the install, much like with XP. But, after c
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I just installed the final release of vista hoping that most of the bugs I have experienced will have been fixed. But... ... what a friggin pain it was to install. My previous install was via the XP OS onto a seperate HD. I have now eliminated XP and run only vista. Here is where the problems start. I deleted the XP partition from the vista boot disk and combined it with another partition. This particular disk is SATA1, I also have an IDE1 and an external USB HD. First problem, the installation manager detects the USB disk ( to which I am NOT installing ) along with the other two. But gives the "cannot find valid system file on specified drive" for every partition. Point to note, if you have an external drive, disable it before attempting to install. Second problem, because I deleted the existing windows partition the boot sector was also removed. This shouldn't be a problem because windows should create a new boot sector. For some reason, this poses a problem to vista. It copies and expands the files, but when it comes to rebooting half way through the install the bios cannot find a boot sector. I thought this was a bios problem and spent a great deal of time trying to configure it correctly. I ended up using the XP CD to do a partial install. Third problem, due to having to use the XP CD, I created a second partition and left the first as unallocated. The boot sector was written to the second by XP, and remained there for vista. ie vista on C: bootsect on D:. Booting into vista, first thing I wanted to do was remove that temporary partition ( D ). Vista will not allow you to delete or format that drive. I again reverted to the XP CD to do this ( knowing the boot sector would dissapear again ). The vista CD has a "repair windows" option which I think was excellent. It took just a few seconds to write the bootsector to drive C: AND to restore the deleted partition ( which I could now safely remove ). Fourth problem, as mentioned I have one SATA drive and one IDE drive. My bios allows me to configure which is the first ( where to find the bootsector ), but vista doesn't like having that sector written to another drive. This may be a bios configuration problem. There were no problems trying to install XP but vista refused to boot. Simple solution, pull out the IDE cable for that drive while installing. Fifth problem, the vista boot CD comes with a drive managing utility. You are able to delete, create and format partitions during the install, much like with XP. But, after c
I always disconnect all secondary drives when installing Windows (any version).
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I just installed the final release of vista hoping that most of the bugs I have experienced will have been fixed. But... ... what a friggin pain it was to install. My previous install was via the XP OS onto a seperate HD. I have now eliminated XP and run only vista. Here is where the problems start. I deleted the XP partition from the vista boot disk and combined it with another partition. This particular disk is SATA1, I also have an IDE1 and an external USB HD. First problem, the installation manager detects the USB disk ( to which I am NOT installing ) along with the other two. But gives the "cannot find valid system file on specified drive" for every partition. Point to note, if you have an external drive, disable it before attempting to install. Second problem, because I deleted the existing windows partition the boot sector was also removed. This shouldn't be a problem because windows should create a new boot sector. For some reason, this poses a problem to vista. It copies and expands the files, but when it comes to rebooting half way through the install the bios cannot find a boot sector. I thought this was a bios problem and spent a great deal of time trying to configure it correctly. I ended up using the XP CD to do a partial install. Third problem, due to having to use the XP CD, I created a second partition and left the first as unallocated. The boot sector was written to the second by XP, and remained there for vista. ie vista on C: bootsect on D:. Booting into vista, first thing I wanted to do was remove that temporary partition ( D ). Vista will not allow you to delete or format that drive. I again reverted to the XP CD to do this ( knowing the boot sector would dissapear again ). The vista CD has a "repair windows" option which I think was excellent. It took just a few seconds to write the bootsector to drive C: AND to restore the deleted partition ( which I could now safely remove ). Fourth problem, as mentioned I have one SATA drive and one IDE drive. My bios allows me to configure which is the first ( where to find the bootsector ), but vista doesn't like having that sector written to another drive. This may be a bios configuration problem. There were no problems trying to install XP but vista refused to boot. Simple solution, pull out the IDE cable for that drive while installing. Fifth problem, the vista boot CD comes with a drive managing utility. You are able to delete, create and format partitions during the install, much like with XP. But, after c
Same thing happens to me. I install to a computer that has a SATA disk and an older, IDE disk. The IDE disk doesn't even have the first partition formatted. I install, select the SATA drive, which is also the active bootable volume, it installs, and in the end I find out the IDE partition (that isn't even "active" so it doesn't boot) got all the system files, boot manager, boot loader, whatever. So I had to install twice, after getting into the CMOS and disabling the IDE drive (funny thing, Vista setup still shows the partitions even if they're disabled in the BIOS). Sometimes I wish I could read the minds of the Microsoft developers, and figure what their thought processes look like.
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Same thing happens to me. I install to a computer that has a SATA disk and an older, IDE disk. The IDE disk doesn't even have the first partition formatted. I install, select the SATA drive, which is also the active bootable volume, it installs, and in the end I find out the IDE partition (that isn't even "active" so it doesn't boot) got all the system files, boot manager, boot loader, whatever. So I had to install twice, after getting into the CMOS and disabling the IDE drive (funny thing, Vista setup still shows the partitions even if they're disabled in the BIOS). Sometimes I wish I could read the minds of the Microsoft developers, and figure what their thought processes look like.
MrBoombastic wrote:
funny thing, Vista setup still shows the partitions even if they're disabled in the BIOS
Thats probably a problem with your BIOS, when I disable mine they cannot be found. Strange thing is though, vista will always see my usb HD. Now that you have it installed, I would seriously recomend making a ghost image of the partition, that way you don't need to go through the hassle again. And it's faster!
