I would agree that Carey gave you the best advice. Having gone through some
of this myself and having a number of unexplained - will not install -
issues, here's what I did and later found - why.
I have a Win98 boot disk with the FDISK version on it that works for >67Gb
drives. If you don't have the Win98/XP files to make a boot disc, go to
www.bootdisk.com and you can find them there along with the FDISK routine.
Make the floppy (or a CD) and boot to DOS using these files.
FDISK the drive you're having a problem with using the one you downloaded
and partition the drive. Do not format the drive. When you boot-up using
Vista, you will then format the drive.
Here's what "we" (Samsung, Asus and Nvidia) surmised happened. The Samsung
drive was factory partitioned using an overlay they place on this particular
line of drives (300Gb). Even though I removed the partition and reformatted
in both WinXP and Vista - no operating system would load on that drive.
I could use the drive for data storage and it worked perfectly but never
would get thru a OS install. The FDISK (for greater than 67Gb drives) wipes
out the factory partition overlay that was installed. Samsung said these
were recently introduced drives and had not received any complaints on
them - yet.
They and Nvidia both mocked up my drive setup. Nvidia did not have the exact
same drive available and the OS loaded fine. This confirmed it was not an
nForce 4 driver issue for the disc controller. Samsung didn't have my
motherboard but obviously had the drive and confirmed what I was seeing.
The FDISK trick was actually brought up by the tech at Nvidia. Over the
course of about 3 days, all three companies worked to solve this problem and
I did not just get lip service - I got damn good tech support and follow-up
which surprised the hell out of me.
Now if you've had twenty tech's telling you things to do - certainly someone
should have mentioned this possibility but if not - give it a shot.
Minimize your system and remove everything not needed to get the system to
boot is another good troubleshooting approach. Yeah - everybody says they
did it already - try it this time and do all the steps at once - not one at
a time. You'll need the minimum components:
Power supply
mouse - PS2 wired (borrow one if you don't have one)
keyboard - PS2 wired (borrow one if you don't have one)
motherboard
1 stick of memory installed and properly seated
video card or on-board video
floppy - optional but handy
CD/DVD drive - only one connected
one hard drive - the one you're working with is all you want connected and
check the cable connections
BIOS settings - factory defaults and then turn off any features not being
used - USB, FireWire, RS232, LPT ports.
If your motherboard has LED's for diagnostic codes - be sure the LED's light
up according to the manual for - no errors. If no LED's - listen for beep
codes as per the manual.
Now with a minimum basic system you should be able to isolate the problem.
Do not forget that cables can cause lot's of aggravation so check for kinks,
not fully seated connectors and have a known good substitute to try just for
giggles.
Bob S.
"Carey Frisch [MVP]" <cnfrisch@nospamgmail.com> wrote in message
news:21692127-7152-4A15-AF38-B9672E38FBE1@microsoft.com...
> You cannot select or format a hard disk partition when you try to install
> Windows Vista
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927520/en-us
>
> How to install Windows Vista
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918884/en-us
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows - Shell/User
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "velamint" wrote:
>
> Hi folks i got a good one that i've stumped about twenty techs on. Ok I'll
> start at the beginning.
>
> I upgraded to Vista Ultimate RC2 back in Dec after i got a copy from my
> office. I then decided i no longer needed my old XP home installation
> files
> in the windows.old folder anymore as i required more space on that drive.
> So
> it's just vista, and that was fine. Then one day i required some
> applications
> and they no longer ran in Vista, so i decided ok to wipe out RC2 since i
> had
> my Home Premium disc from work by then. So I went to just perform a clean
> install of XP Home by formatting the drive during install and just going
> through as normal, and this is where the fun started.
>
> It ran through the initial setup where is copied my files, then on the
> reboot i always got this error....operating system error.
> That's all it said, no more info than that.
>
> So after running through the install twice more and receiving the same
> error
> i decided to try something else. I have an XP Pro disc but do not have a
> key,
> as i was just curious i threw that in and the install went through without
> error. So i partitioned my drive and threw home premium on the second
> partition. 30 days later i was locked out as i have no Pro key but only my
> home key. So i attempted the install again, this time with a new hard
> drive
> and a brand spanking new copy of XP Home i received from my other job.
> ....again...no dice.
>
> I get to the first boot and always get the error from hell.
>
> So XP Pro install is fine, XP home...no dice....
> So...back again i reinstalled a 80GB hard drive that had nothing but my
> junk
> files on it. I formatted SIX TIMES and then loaded xp home disc....ERROR.
> I then installed Vista Home Premium which went fine and said i hate you XP
> HOME.
>
> However i still have the disc and want to know why it won't install on my
> machine. I have since flashed my BIOS in case Vista left some sort of
> footprint on there...i have not tried it again out of sheer frustration
> but
> if someone could at least popint me in the right direction to fix this it
> would be GREATLY appreciated. I need XP Home at home on my machine for
> work
> related stuff.
>
> Assistance please!
>
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