Requirements for a Classic Clean Install of Vista.

[Colin Barnhorst]

There are two options for installing Vista. Upgrade-in-place and Custom.

Custom Install does NOT mean a classic clean install. It only means a clean
install of the OS.

To do a classic clean install you need to format the target volume.
Formatting from within Vista Setup is a choice under Advanced Options.
Advanced Options does not appear unless you are running Setup from a system
boot with the Vista dvd. If you are running Setup from a Windows desktop,
you will not see the Advanced Options.

If you are setting up a dual boot configuration and want to retain the same
drive enumeration between OS's you need to run Setup from the desktop. This
means that if you want a classic clean installation AND you want to retain a
common drive enumeration you need to format the target partition before
running Setup.

Here is an interesting byproduct of the above for x64 users. I experimented
by installing XP Pro x64 on a system on the D: drive and then Vista x64 on
the C: drive. I then ran a Vista x86 Setup from the Vista x64 desktop and
did a Custom install on D:. (over XP x64). The completed Vista x86
installation on D: had both a Program Files folder AND a Program Files (x86)
folder. This does not produce an unstable system, but it can be confusing.
Those of you using 64bit XP keep this in mind when moving up to Vista x64.

Installing software that had previously been installed under XP x64 did not
result in any problems.

There sure are going to be some interesting questions coming up in here.
Don't make any assumptions about what the user may or may not have been able
to do to get himself into a pickle.

 

[Richard Urban]

Throw in a mix of SATA and IDE drives and you enter a whole other world.
Nothing is easy or straight forward any longer.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Yeah. Setup likes to put the Boot Configuration Store data on a PATA drive
when it finds one.

 

[Richard Urban]

What happens to me is this:

My first ATA-100 hard drive has a single logical partition on it, formatted
NTFS. Of course, there are 8 meg of free (unallocated) space at the front of
the drive. During an install with this drive connected, setup will begin
writing setup files to this drive. 8 meg fills up real fast. The install
continues and completes but will not boot into the operating system. This is
because all of what is necessary will not fit into the 8 meg. The install
actually fails, but there is absolutely no notification at all that it has
done so.

I have to physically disconnect my 2 ATA-100 drives to obtain a valid and
bootable install. Then I shut down, reconnect the 2 IDE drives and
everything is fine.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

That has been a known issue since Beta 1. Setup will use a PATA drive for
workspace no matter the target volume if it finds one. It is a headache for
mixed systems. MS knows this. I installed build 5270 on such a system
once. Since then I stuck to testing on machines with SATA internal drives
only. I moved all of my ATA drives to external enclosures.