Cannot install vista -frustrated and giving up on vista

[Guest]

First, I cannot modify existing partitions though I have a 200GB disk. My
boot partition is 15GB of whihc 6GB is used by XP. Now since Vista needs
15GB, it appears that I have a big problem. This is a problem with several
of my friends too since we have data in existing partitions. (It gives an
error that there is not sufficient space to download Temp setup files from
XP)

I can create a partition of 20GB at the end of the partition and want to use
this for vista. The install ALWAYS looks at C: and does not proceed. Is
there a way to have it look into this other drive.

I also have another hard disk whose first partition is 20GB and dont mind
using this for vista. After a successful install in this partition it comes
up with a n error that it cannot locate winload.exe ? Then I read about some
confuision with the boot starting to use C: for the boot drive and then D:
for boot loaded and then getting confused.

Looks like vista install is P-O-S and very frustrating. It seems to have
some good features but that is AFTER getting it installed and BE able to
access/use it.

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

First, I cannot modify existing partitions though I have a 200GB disk. My
boot partition is 15GB of whihc 6GB is used by XP. Now since Vista needs
15GB, it appears that I have a big problem. This is a problem with
several
of my friends too since we have data in existing partitions. (It gives an
error that there is not sufficient space to download Temp setup files from
XP)

I can create a partition of 20GB at the end of the partition and want to
use
this for vista. The install ALWAYS looks at C: and does not proceed. Is
there a way to have it look into this other drive.

I also have another hard disk whose first partition is 20GB and dont mind
using this for vista. After a successful install in this partition it
comes
up with a n error that it cannot locate winload.exe ? Then I read about
some
confuision with the boot starting to use C: for the boot drive and then D:
for boot loaded and then getting confused.

Looks like vista install is P-O-S and very frustrating. It seems to have
some good features but that is AFTER getting it installed and BE able to
access/use it.

Vista installs it's own boot manager in the first partition it "sees" by
default, in order for there to be the possibility of a dual boot scenario
with your existing operating system.

Perhaps, if you have a retail CD of PartitionMagic, you can "hide" these
drives when installing, and then use BootMagic as a boot manager? This
works very nicely for me.

Failing that, you could physically unplug all but the spare hard drive,
install Vista there and then use the BIOS to switch between which system you
wish to boot. Clumsy, but it may work for you.

Another alternative is to use VirtualPC or VMWare and install Vista in this
way.