Removed Vista - Now Can't Install Any OS

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**Posted here because XP group suggested Vista users might have run across
the same problem** I removed Vista from my drive and reformatted with XP CD
(booted from CD) but computer keeps rebooting when I get to the screen where
I am asked to "...hit enter to install XP, etc...". This reboot occurs even
if I try to install from the hard drive, a Win98 boot disk or the 6 Disk Set
of XP floppies. I finnaly got Win98 to install (only from the Harddrive and
barely!) and tried upgrading to XP from there, still reboots! I guess the
reason for the post here is to ask if there is some kind of crazy thing that
Vista does to the HD that I need to do something else to it to get this to
work? I have eliminated the CD drives, I put the hard drive in another
computer and tried, tested the RAM, CD's are good (have Home and Pro CD's,
and a Win98 CD, tried them all!), went to a bare bones system with old
Trident S3 video, put the hard drive in another system as a slave and
formatted it, copied the files to the drive then reinstalled, etc. - nothing
will work and I can't get an Operating System on this computer!! Any help?
Thanks
 
You don't say anything about your computer. Did it have some restore
process built in? You might try a fixmbr and fixboot from the Recovery
Console of the XP install disk in case either got corrupted. If you have a
computer with the recovery process (like Dell and Compaq) you will probably
have to contact their tech support for the process necessary.
 
Thanks for the reply - yes - in fact, I have deleted the partition many
times!! I can FDISK in my sleep!! I actually did it both ways, from a boot
floppy (and CD) and also during the install process.
 
No, it is a "homebuilt" system. It is about a year old or so. I haven't
tried fixing the master boot yet but I don't remember if I can get to the
recovery console. If I remember right, it reboots before I can choose any
options. I think it reboots just at the point where I can choose to use the
console. When I use the 6 disk XP set, after it accepts the 6th floppy, it
comes to the point where I make my choice and if I wait about 2 or 3 seconds,
it just reboots. If I choose something, it still reboots. In case it matters,
I have a Matsonic MB, P4 2.8, 2 Ram chips (1-256, 1-512) (tried with each
separately, also), 80 gig WD HD. Removed all cards & drives but HD even and
still no joy.
 
I have installed multiple OSes after I cleaned Vista off my drive. XP, and
varying versions of Linux. I am not aware of any issues with Vista
physically changing a hard drives structure. As far as I know, no OS can do
this. What is the status of your disk drive? Have you received any system
errors? Have you tried using the manufacturers disk tools to rebuild the
drive?
 
Are you trying to install the OS into a Primary partition that you created
after running FDISK?
 
I haven't received any errors - I haven't tried any OEM tools yet, but I
think I may need to. When I put this drive in another computer, it rebooted
also so it HAS to be something with the drive, not the other components,
which is why everyone in the XP group was wondering if Vista does some magic
to the drive that formatting FDISK doesn't remove!!
 
To JW - I tried to reply to your post but it gets caught in an endless loop
and won't let me!! I have only created 1 partition - the primary and active
- and try to install to there.
 
Honestly, I'm not aware of it having the ability to do that. It would have
to physically change the drive geometry. Or modify the platters in some way.
The MFT shouldn't come into play, because you wiped it. I'm just as baffled
as you are, I think Google might be in order.
 
HAHA!! That's funny!!! (Not laughing to be sarcastic - I am really
laughing!) I have googled until my freakin' fingers hurt!!! That's why I
came here! All I can find elsewhere mainly refers to having bad memory,
etc., which has all been checked! I downloaded WD's drive tools, I'll work
with them tonight and see how that goes. If it doesn't work, I'll try to
Ghost my 2000 machine's drive and see if it runs, if so, then I'll try to do
an upgrade and see! For some reason, I don't think it'll work!! Thanks for
trying - if I ever do figure it out, I'll post in case by some freak of
nature someone else ever runs across this! I know I NEVER have in my 23 years
of computer troubleshooting!
 
Please let us know, this sure is a tricky one!!

Tmcdon05 said:
HAHA!! That's funny!!! (Not laughing to be sarcastic - I am really
laughing!) I have googled until my freakin' fingers hurt!!! That's why I
came here! All I can find elsewhere mainly refers to having bad memory,
etc., which has all been checked! I downloaded WD's drive tools, I'll
work
with them tonight and see how that goes. If it doesn't work, I'll try to
Ghost my 2000 machine's drive and see if it runs, if so, then I'll try to
do
an upgrade and see! For some reason, I don't think it'll work!! Thanks
for
trying - if I ever do figure it out, I'll post in case by some freak of
nature someone else ever runs across this! I know I NEVER have in my 23
years
of computer troubleshooting!
Click to expand...
 
It was suggested your remove the partition and recreate it. Have you done
that? You might also not make the partition active, so you can boot to the
CD if you are having problems doing that. I use Fdisk to remove the non-dos
partition and then recreate a DOS partition. http://www.killdisk.com/

If you don't have anything to do this with, now use Google. I have a
program called Kill Disk, which has Fdisk on it if you make a bootable CD
from it.

Clark
 
I have been having the same problem since removing vista from one of my
computers. I have formatted the disk no end of times, rebuilt the MBR and
tested the drive which has no errors on it the disk structure is ok. The only
O/S that I can install on this drive is vista and no other not even linux.
This was a brand new drive. Now it looks like I will have to buy another one.
 
ghost in the machine said:
I have been having the same problem since removing vista from one of my
computers. I have formatted the disk no end of times, rebuilt the MBR and
tested the drive which has no errors on it the disk structure is ok. The
only
O/S that I can install on this drive is vista and no other not even linux.
This was a brand new drive. Now it looks like I will have to buy another
one.
Click to expand...
You may need to use your drive manufacturer's tools to do a low level format
of the drive.
I don't believe, from my experiences (several reformats followed by installs
of XP or a newer Vista on the Vista partition) that this is a Vista issue.
 
I had the same situation after installing Vista and I was
able to use the hard drive again after doing "fdisk /mbr"
from DOS. I used a Windows ME boot disk for the DOS prompt.
 
Did you originally have the drive formatted in FAT32 and then converted to
NTFS? I had a similar problem with XPx64 Pro where it could not see the
drives that were converted and had to do a complete reformat not a standard
quick reformat. I suspect that there is some compatibility problem caused by
converting from FAT32 to NTFS.
 
I ran into a similar issue when testing the Vista install on an older 40gig
Maxtor.
it installed fine, and then I went and tried to install Ubuntu over the top
of it and it could not partition the drive.

Stuck my XP CD in for the partitioning utilities and was able to (I thought)
get the drive formatted to FAT32.
Tried installing Ubuntu again and it still could not do it....went back and
tried different options with XP CD and had the same results.

I then tried using my gparted live CD
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php wiped the drive....and then Ubuntu
was able to install.

-Ben
 
Are you running a SATA hard drive?

I have been trying to replicate your situation, and so far have not been
able to. The biggest problem I might run into is not being able to boot
from the DVD, but you seem to have that under control.

I have so far, installed XP twice and cleaned installed it to 5744. XP
installs after the Vista install went fine, except for not being able to
copy cmnicfg.xml, which halted the install. That little problem was solved
by deleting and recreating the partition. WinME would not install for some
reason, but that might have been a video problem.

If you use Fdisk, make sure you start it with the enable CD-ROM drivers. It
seems to make a difference.

Clark
 
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