Scenario:

New build, started to load XP Pro, needed product verification code, of which I inadvertently through away
Got as far as code request, then aborted the installation.
Turned this place upside down looking for this code, no luck
Wound up buying Vista Home Premium, loaded it OK for the most part..........
Turns out XP still on my hard drive, waiting for the product code, of which I do not have.
System has 3 hard drives, all WD SE sata, 2 250 mb, and 1 500 mb
XP was loaded onto 500 drive, disconnected it because of not being able to input code.
Loaded Vista onto either 1 or both of the 250's
Vista now crashes regularly, I am surprised that it loaded at all.......
500 drive with partial XP load out of the loop, disconnected its input
How do I go about dumping XP from this drive?
I am almost certain that my problem lies with not enough space on the 2 drives that Vista is loaded onto now.....
Is there an easy way to dump partial XP load from 500 drive?
If I reconnect this drive to the system, XP starts, cannot exit it without shutting down the system
Am I correct in my assumptions?

I would put the 500GB drive as slave, back-up anything important on it and then reformat it.

Sounds like reformatting and reinstalling Vista would be a good idea as well.

I agree with Mr Alpha - sounds like the boot sector is also involved in this. First get rid of XP by formatting the drive that it's on. Then format the drive that Vista is on. Finally, format the drive that the computer boots from (if it's different from the Vista and XP drives). You can do this with the Vista boot DVD. Once you choose the partition for Vista, you may want to also create a small (4 - 6 gB) partition at the beginning of one of the drives for use later on (see the last part of this post). It's important that this partition be the first one on that drive - you can then create a partition in the remaining space for storage.

FWIW - I suspect you've got 2 boot sectors - one on the hard disk that XP is installed on, and another on the hard disk that Vista's installed on.

Once that's done, have your SATA drivers ready on a floppy - and start to install Vista. When it asks if you want to load drivers for SATA/RAID/SCSI drivers, insert the floppy and let it load. Then finish the Vista installation.

If you get the error message again, please let us know the code that it gives. Most likely it's a driver issue with a piece of hardware, and I find that most times the drive issue is related to the SATA drivers.

Finally, once it's up and running, here's a tweak to make it a bit more peppy - go to Start and type in "sysdm.cpl" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Then click on the Advanced tab, then on the Performance Settings button, then on the next Advanced tab, then on the Virtual Memory Change button.

Set the paging file to "No Pagefile" on the C: drive, and set the Custom size on the 4 - 6 gB partition to be 2000 max and 2000 min. Then click on the Set button, Click OK to exit all of the dialogs and reboot for the changes to take effect. This'll help to reduce the hard disk bottleneck when using the pagefile - as the pagefile can operate independently of the OS since it's on another physical hard drive.

Hey, that's a really good idea. I never though of that.

I stumbled upon it while reading up on pagefile performance a while back. The idea is that most pagefile access' will be done while the OS or programs are working - so it'll compete for access to the hard drive (thereby slowing the system down). It'd be even better (IMO) if you put all the Program Files on a 3rd physical hard drive - but haven't tested that and suspect that the difference wouldn't be as noticeable as it was with the pagefile.

I tried this with XP Pro a while back and found a noticeable speed improvement on my system (using 2 W-D Raptor I's). On the new system I set it up that way from the start, so I didn't have a chance to notice any differences with it.

I already have my Program Files and games on a separate physical hard drive.

I'll move my pagefile to the new 1TB Hitachi Deskstar drive I'm waiting on and see what happens. Its got 32MB of cache and in some cases performs as fast as the Raptors. Linky

Wow! Way cool! I'm using the new Raptors on my system (got a deal on them from work) and they are the bomb!

Will do tomorrow John,
Thanks again.......

Thanks John for the response again,
Still having problems, before I go any further I have a few questions,

Was I supposed to format the drive that the O/S was loaded onto before actually loading Vista, or did the program do that automatically?
I think that the initial load of XP (remembering that I aborted this load) was incompletely loaded onto the 500 mb drive, I reformatted this drive (did not realize that it would take so long). I also believe that Vista was loaded onto this drive also. However, Vista still operates, albeit not too well, it still crashes. Is it possibel that part if not all of Vista was loaded elsewhere in the system? How would I be able to verify this?
I think that at this point I will re-format all 3 hard drives (2X250, 1X500) and start anew.
The boot order is set for DVD/CD player first, 500 drive second, 1 of the 250 drives third, then the second 250 drive last, is this correct?
Will I be able to reformat all drives using the cd that came with the drives (Western Digital) ? How do I go about doing this?
Please remember that I am a newbie, please bear with me, your patience so far is amazing......
Would you be able to provide a step by step guide for this, or direct me to a blog that would put this in laymans terms?

The boot order is fine.

You can use the Vista DVD to format the drives:

1. Switch on your PC
2. Quickly insert the Vista DVD into your CD/DVD-ROM drive
3. A message will appear asking you to 'Press any key to boot from CD/DVD
4. Press any key
5. A black screen will now appear with a progress bar along the bottom. The legend say's Windows is loading files
6. After the files have been loaded the Language screen will appear.
7. Select your language from the list and press Next
8. At the Installation screen press the Install Now button
9. The product key window will now open
10. Type your product key number into the available box and then press OK
11. The End user Licence Agreement now appears. You must accept this to continue
12. The next screen to appear is 'Where do you want to install Windows'
13. At the bottom of this window you will see an option marked Drive options (Advanced), click on this option
14. In this Window select the partition you wish to Format from the list available and then click Format option link
15. A message will now appear informing you that all data will be destroyed. Click OK to proceed
16. You can repeat the last steps to format the other drives.

Thanks again John, you're amazing........will do tomorrow when I get home and keep you posted......

Man, you really know how to hurt ones ego.

Sorry bud, you're just as awesome..... as well as anyone else who's been responding, much Thanks

OK here's the lowdown:

Loaded Vista as per your directions, formatted all hard drives as directed, I am now presented with the following while trying to re-load vista:

a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_OR EQUAL
If this is the first time you've seen this stop eror screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed, ask your h/ware or s/ware
manufacturteer for any windowqs updates you might need
If problems conmtinue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. disable bios memory options such as caching or shadoweing.If you need to use safe mode top remove or disable components, restart your computer, press f8 to selwect advanced startup options, and then select safe moide


techinical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000000A (0xde20D07eE, 0x000000002, 0x000000000,0x888ba8d7
If these values make no sense, I can gladly resend them

How much memory do you have?

Have you loaded the drivers for the SATA (it happens early on in the installation process, either asking for "other drivers" or RAID/SCSI drivers)?

Vista is really good about recognizing them - but the BIOS may not be.

Mermory is 4X1 gb Patriot PC2 6400 DDR2 800

Take out two of those and then try installing it. It may be this problem.

MAHALO (Thanks in Hawaiian) to all of those who responded to my seemingly never ending quest to load some sort of operating system, Vista is now fully functional, in all it's glory(?) on my new build.......

Special Thanks to John and Mark, removing 2 RAM did the trick, this note is being sent on my new build...it is all I expected and more, super fast compared to my ancient Dell, can't wait to O/C !..........lol

This forum and it's special members ROCKS !

Question...after you remove the extra 2 gig and get Vista installed, can you put the 2 gig back?

JG

According to the article that Mr. Alpha posted - yes you can.