Uninstalling Vista problem

[Guest]

I have vista installed on a single partitoned hdd, no other os installed.
I wish to reinstall XP, but for some reason I can't. I have tried booting
using my XP disc, but to no avail. The first boot device is set to boot
from DVD. The disc is ok (booting) because have tried it in another system.
I get to the point where you press any key to boot from cd, but it just
carries on booting into windows (vista).
Any ideas how to get rid of vista?

TIA

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Change the boot priority in the BIOS so that the cd drive is above the hard
drive.

 

[Guest]

Yes I have, like I said below, the "First boot device" is set to dvd/cd.
System =
Shuttle comprising of:
2 Hard drives (Vista is on Pri Master IDE)
1 x DVD/RW (Sec IDE Master)

HTH

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Did XP come preinstalled?

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Then you may have a problem with the DVD drive, try another.

 

[Chad Harris]

S--

Again tell us. Was XP ever installed on this drive? Is this a clean,
virgin out of the box HD? Did you perhaps upgrade from XP? Did you have a
dual boot and use some partitioning software to get rid of the XP boot?

CH

 

[Guest]

I have exactly the same problem. I built a new system, installed Visa
Premium 64-bit with no other OS. I have set my bios to boot from my DVD
drive first to attempt to install a different OS or reformat the hard drive,
but the system ignores me and continues right on loading up Vista. I decided
that I needed to install a dual OS system after the fact due to so many
16-bit games my kids have that will not run on Vista. So far, I haven't
figured out a way to reformat my hard drive, wipe Vista, and start over.
Anyone figured this out yet.

 

[DanR]

Can you boot to the Vista DVD?
If so you can use "disk utilities" to delete the drive partition. That's one
way to get rid of Vista. Then hopefully you can boot to the XP CD.
I just did this yesterday. As I recall the disk utility menu comes up after
you are asked to enter the key. Skip the key page and keep going until you
see "disk utilities" on the right side of display. Highlight the Vista
partition and delete it. Then QUIT. Don't click continue.
You can also reformat at this step but I deleted and let XP format.

 

[Guest]

No - no matter what I do in Bios - even tell it to boot to everything but the
hard drive, it ignores booting to the DVD drive and Vista boots right up.
Eventually, I was able to use an old Dos disk I had from Windows 98 to boot
up to a floppy. Then I ran Fdisk and deleted all the partitions. However -
now I have a new problem. The previous step has not completely left my hard
drive empty (even though it appears to be). Now when I attempt to boot from
the DVD-Rom as I originally did when I put Vista on, the remnants the windows
98 boot disk left on my hard drive are preventing my DVD-rom drive from being
recognized as well. Is there a way to return my hard drive to original,
uncorrupted state so that it will recognize the DVD Rom drive on boot up like
it originally did when I installed everything? I have a Seagate 320 GB OEM
hard drive, Lite-On DVD 20x R/W, Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Motherboard, Core 2 Duo
E6600 Processor. I am able to boot from a USB-floppy, so if there is
something that can be done from that that I can download from the internet
and put on a floppy that will get me out of this funk, let me know. Thanks!

 

[DanR]

Have you checked that the DVD/CD drive is properly connected? Obviously it
has power but check the data connector at the drive and at the MB. Is the
DVD/CD drive SATA? One way to tell is by the data connector. It would NOT be
the ribbon type. If you've told the BIOS to boot to the DVD/CD drive (and
it's enabled) it should at least look at it. (light it up momentarily) I
don't think anything on your hard drive can prevent this.
Why do you think your hard drive is NOT empty? Why do you think there are
remnants of Win98? You could try disconnecting the data cable of the hard
drive and try to boot from DVD/CD to help pinpoint the root of this problem.
Sorry but that's all I can think of.

 

[Guest]

The DVD R/W is an EIDE drive. It is attached and powered. At the very end
of the boot sceen (when it gives all the computer info), there are a couple
of lines talking about EZ Bios. It skips the ability of me to have an
opportunity to boot from the DVD drive. This was not originally there before
I did the wipe from my Windows 98 boot disk. Even though the C: appears to
be empty, it seems like there is some type of hidden file embedded in it from
when I created and formatted a DOS partition. I deleted the partition and
all data from C: with an erase *.*, however this EZ Bios thing remains at the
end of the boot screen. I figured at worst, I can start with a fresh hard
drive, and add this one once I get everything installed. Not my favorite
idea, but I'll use the space at some point anyway.

 

[DanR]

I don't have any more ideas to suggest. I am confused as to how you deleted
the partition. Did you just boot to a DOS floppy and type erase c:\*.* ?
And I don't see how data on the C: drive can cause it to jump ahead in the
boot sequence.

Maybe someone else with more expertise needs to jump in here.