Does Vista setup require a formatted drive to install in dual-bootsetups??

[Ron Miller]

All previous versions of Windows Setup were quite happy to actually
create partitions for installations, create logical drives on them, and
format them.
I tried to install Vista on an XP machine with one HD. In XP I created
a new 20GB primary partition with an unformatted logical drive V:. I
intentionally left V: unformatted, because I thought I'd read something
in this forum about Vista's NTFS formatting being slightly different
from prior flavors of NT.

The install would start, but after entering the product key and
directing it to the new drive, setup would fail with the message that it
couldn't see a hard drive for copying files. C: had 2.5 GB of free
space, and the unformatted V: had 20 GB of free space. This occurred
three times (I couldn't believe that there was truly a problem, so I
kept trying.) Finally, I returned to XP and formatted the logical
drive. After that, Vista installed without a hiccup, and I ended up
with a perfectly functioning XP Pro/Vista dual boot.

Does this seem logical?
If I had created ONLY the partition with no logical V: drive, would
Vista have installed nicely like prior versions of Windows?

Ron

 

[Donald McDaniel]

All previous versions of Windows Setup were quite happy to actually create
partitions for installations, create logical drives on them, and format
them.
I tried to install Vista on an XP machine with one HD. In XP I created a
new 20GB primary partition with an unformatted logical drive V:. I
intentionally left V: unformatted, because I thought I'd read something in
this forum about Vista's NTFS formatting being slightly different from prior
flavors of NT.

The install would start, but after entering the product key and directing it
to the new drive, setup would fail with the message that it couldn't see a
hard drive for copying files. C: had 2.5 GB of free space, and the
unformatted V: had 20 GB of free space. This occurred three times (I
couldn't believe that there was truly a problem, so I kept trying.)
Finally, I returned to XP and formatted the logical drive. After that,
Vista installed without a hiccup, and I ended up with a perfectly
functioning XP Pro/Vista dual boot.

Does this seem logical?
If I had created ONLY the partition with no logical V: drive, would Vista
have installed nicely like prior versions of Windows?

Ron

Considering that a "Full" edition of XP or Vista (whether a Boxed Retail copy
or a generic OEM copy (now called a "System Builder Kit") are both designed to
be installed on a NEW machine containing NO Operating System, (and thus, no
formatted HD), I don't see why you had any problems.

I guess if we try hard enough, we can create more than enough problems for
ourselves where none exist. In your case, I assume you tried extra-hard to
create them for yourself.

 

[Ron Miller]

Considering that a "Full" edition of XP or Vista (whether a Boxed Retail
copy or a generic OEM copy (now called a "System Builder Kit") are both
designed to be installed on a NEW machine containing NO Operating
System, (and thus, no formatted HD), I don't see why you had any problems.

That's right. That's why I was looking for an explanation of what happened.

I guess if we try hard enough, we can create more than enough problems
for ourselves where none exist. In your case, I assume you tried
extra-hard to create them for yourself.

I'm at a loss to explain why you chose to include this last slam. In
actual fact, by omitting the formatting and trying to allow Vista Setup
to do it, I was trying to prevent problems. Posting the issue here
could potentially prevent problems for others. If people with
legitimate questions get insults in return, it doesn't do much to
further the purpose of the forum's existence, does it?

Ron

 

[Donald McDaniel]

That's right. That's why I was looking for an explanation of what happened.


I'm at a loss to explain why you chose to include this last slam. In actual
fact, by omitting the formatting and trying to allow Vista Setup to do it, I
was trying to prevent problems. Posting the issue here could potentially
prevent problems for others. If people with legitimate questions get
insults in return, it doesn't do much to further the purpose of the forum's
existence, does it?

Ron

Please forgive me for my "off the cuff" remark. It was not intended to be
hurtful, only intended to wake you up a little.

However, with the information you've given, I still don't understand why
you've had a problem.
1) First, what sort of key did you use? Retail Upgrade, Full Retail, or System
Builder (OEM)?
2) NO Microsoft OS installer will "format your HD for you", without your
telling it to. Did you tell the Vista Installer to create a partition on the
drive with 20GB free space? Did you subsequently tell the Vista Installer to
format that partition?
3) From the amount of free space on your C: drive, it's obvious that Vista
would ignore it, since Vista requires a MINIMUM Of 20GB Free space to unpack
the image for the version you purchased.
4) Why your Vista installer failed to report the second, unpartitioned drive
in the built-in Partition manager, I do not have an answer for. I've even
installed Vista on an Apple Intel Macintosh, with the Mac OS partitions still
intact, and they showed up in the Vista Partition Manager as "Unknown" (but
"Healthy") partitions. Unpartitioned free space will show up as "Free space"
in the Partition Manager. An empty secondary HD will show up as an empty
drive with a Windows Drive letter.

This is why I have trouble understanding your problem.

I will delete all my partitions sometime today, and do another clean install
of Vista, and see if I have the same problem you've reported.

Then I will report back on the results in this thread. Hopefully, it will
help to give you greater understanding, and a solution.

Again, forgive me for my off-the-cuff remark.

 

[Ron Miller]

However, with the information you've given, I still don't understand why
you've had a problem.
1) First, what sort of key did you use? Retail Upgrade, Full Retail, or
System Builder (OEM)?

The key I used came with the MS Action Pack DVD of Vista Business. The
DVD was labeled, "Upgrade."

2) NO Microsoft OS installer will "format your HD for you", without your
telling it to. Did you tell the Vista Installer to create a partition
on the drive with 20GB free space? Did you subsequently tell the Vista
Installer to format that partition?

The partition was already there before starting Vista Setup. I had
previously created it in XP and made a logical drive on it, "V," but the
drive was not formatted. If I direct it to install on an unformatted
drive, it seems obvious that Setup should format it, but it didn't, and
that's what surprised me.

3) From the amount of free space on your C: drive, it's obvious that
Vista would ignore it, since Vista requires a MINIMUM Of 20GB Free space
to unpack the image for the version you purchased.

The error message stated that it needed "392 MB" for whatever it was
trying to do when it quit. The V: drive that was created expressly for
it had 20GB of free space. I've successfully installed Ultimate RC1
onto a 15GB drive with no problems.

4) Why your Vista installer failed to report the second, unpartitioned
drive in the built-in Partition manager, I do not have an answer for.
I've even installed Vista on an Apple Intel Macintosh, with the Mac OS
partitions still intact, and they showed up in the Vista Partition
Manager as "Unknown" (but "Healthy") partitions. Unpartitioned free
space will show up as "Free space" in the Partition Manager. An empty
secondary HD will show up as an empty drive with a Windows Drive letter.

Although nothing labeled "Partition manager" appeared in Vista Setup, it
clearly got to the point where it reported the drives it saw. It did,
in fact, see all three logical drives (all on the same HD and all on
separate partitions), and I was able to direct Setup to install Vista on
the V: drive.

This is why I have trouble understanding your problem.

I've done this on two other computers. On one, the 25GB V: drive was
left unformatted, and Setup had no problem. On the other, the 25GB
drive WAS formatted by XP in advance of the Vista setup, and there was
no problem. On this third computer, as mentioned, I couldn't get Vista
Setup to complete without formatting the V: drive in advance.

I will delete all my partitions sometime today, and do another clean
install of Vista, and see if I have the same problem you've reported.

Then I will report back on the results in this thread. Hopefully, it
will help to give you greater understanding, and a solution.

Again, forgive me for my off-the-cuff remark.

No worries, Mate.