I have the unfortunate task of installing Vista on someones laptop. I've already experienced this tribulation installing it on mine but I kept images and have never installed Vista on anything else, thankfully.
The Acer Aspire had two partitions and a hidden recovery partition, which was full of bloatware and didn't seem to want to work anyway.
I wanted to delete the recovery partition and make my own using Acronis. I deleted all partitions using Hiren's CD and Disk Director then I created two partions, one for the OS and one for Acronis images. Apparently, Vista didn't like very much that and wouldn't install. Maybe it doesn't like Acronis-made partitions?
I thought "Ah! I'll delete the partitions and create a new one with the Vista installer..." I deleted the partitions and then Vista informed me that there was no HDD present. I remembered this debacle from my laptop installation. The Aspire reports the HDD as IDE so it doesn't seem to be a SATA driver issue.
I then booted Hiren's again to meddle with the partitions again, for the third or forth time. Acronis hangs on the splash screen... Another couple of partion tools tell me about an MBR error... So, Vista has mangled the MBR, that's helpful of it.
I take it that I need to use a MBR tool to fix it now.
Can someone make this less painful for me and give me a hint on how to partition the drive so Vista can a) Actually see the partition; b) Attempt to install on said partition. Ideally I'd like two partitions but I suspect that may be a little ambitious and beyond the sphere of competence of the Vista installer, therefore it might be easier to resize it once I finally manage to trick Vista into installing.
How many times have I installed XP without this fiasco? Is Windows 7 less of a pantomime to install?
The Acer Aspire had two partitions and a hidden recovery partition, which was full of bloatware and didn't seem to want to work anyway.
I wanted to delete the recovery partition and make my own using Acronis. I deleted all partitions using Hiren's CD and Disk Director then I created two partions, one for the OS and one for Acronis images. Apparently, Vista didn't like very much that and wouldn't install. Maybe it doesn't like Acronis-made partitions?
I thought "Ah! I'll delete the partitions and create a new one with the Vista installer..." I deleted the partitions and then Vista informed me that there was no HDD present. I remembered this debacle from my laptop installation. The Aspire reports the HDD as IDE so it doesn't seem to be a SATA driver issue.
I then booted Hiren's again to meddle with the partitions again, for the third or forth time. Acronis hangs on the splash screen... Another couple of partion tools tell me about an MBR error... So, Vista has mangled the MBR, that's helpful of it.
I take it that I need to use a MBR tool to fix it now.
Can someone make this less painful for me and give me a hint on how to partition the drive so Vista can a) Actually see the partition; b) Attempt to install on said partition. Ideally I'd like two partitions but I suspect that may be a little ambitious and beyond the sphere of competence of the Vista installer, therefore it might be easier to resize it once I finally manage to trick Vista into installing.
How many times have I installed XP without this fiasco? Is Windows 7 less of a pantomime to install?