Windows won't install on laptop

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Guest

So I have a Toshiba Tecra A3. 40 GB HD which I've currently allocated 17.5 GB
for Vista. The "capable" requirements off the website don't list a minimum
hard drive space, yet I've allocated this space and formatted it and the
install complains:
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for
installation.

Anyone know whats going on here? Some way I can get it to install. I
installed it on my desktop as a triple boot and I only allocated around 20 GB
there for it to install.
If there WAS a limit it should have been listed and expressed before I
formatted my laptop and downloaded 500 MB worth of updates and spent 2 hours
getting the other partition nice and tidy.
 
You have enough space. Vista requires about 11GB for installation and a
little less after installation.

Why don't you run the Vista Upgrade Advisor to see if you need to do
something to your computer before installing Vista:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx

Looking at your specs online it looks like the hard drive controller would
not require any special driver, but you probably ought to check on that.

Don't expect Glass.
 
I doubt the upgrade advisor will run in Linux so its not much help to me. I
know the media is good I installed off it onto my desktop without error. I'm
going to try setting that particular partition as active as I've heard that
can solve the problem
 
So the Installer did not show any hard drives in the window where you are
asked to check where to install? Or did you not get that far?

Laptops are notorious for not working well in Betas where there is limited
driver support, but as Colin mentioned the HD controller should be one of
the more common ones that are included.
 
No, I could see the harddrive, make the partition, format the partition but
it wouldn't actually continue with the installation from there. I have solved
the problem by setting the partition active. Absolute stupidest thing ever
as far as I'm concerned. And the reason for all the duplicate posts was
because it was telling me there was an error and my post wasn't received.
 
Microsoft also recommends burning at your slowest speed, 2x or 4x. MS is
getting reports of a lot of file read errors and found that the commonest
solution was the burn speed. However, that would not account for not seeing
the partition. Vista writes Boot Configuration Data to the 'system' drive
so if you are using grub or lilo you should do some research before doing
any thing that will change the mbr.

Another thing is to check the partition and make sure it is basic and not
dynamic.
 
As I said below. The probelm was the partition needed to be set active. The
media is also good as I've previously installed on my desktop from it. Its
installing (slowly) now. Slightly slower DVD drive and slower hard drive is
making for a much longer copying of files.
 
It's not his fault. It's the web-based newsreader telling him (incorrectly)
that the posting failed.
 
I know it was the web based newgroup....that is why I put the smiley instead
of screaming at him like Conor would do...but...
If he would have even looked into the newsgroup at all, he would have seen
that this problem is VERY obvious and could have not posted 6 times before
he realised it was going through...
 
I can see that a person would not think to do that. He is getting an error
message. Why would expect the post to appear anyway? We just have to be
kind to them and one day it will get fixed.
 
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