BleepingComputer.com: Reinstalling Vista

My laptop is getting really slow and I want to do a clean install of vista. Ok, here is the problem. When I put the recovery disc in my dvd drive and restart my computer it refuses to load from the disc. I have set my BIOS to allow the boot from dvd but it still will not boot. It tries to read the disc but eventually it fails. I think my dvd drive is going out.

Is there any other way to repair vista without having to use my dvd drive? Could I use a usb memory stick or do I have to get a new dvd drive?

~Cheers

P.S. My hard drive is split into three partitions: C (operating system) D (recovery) and F (main) and I want to format my C drive and reinstall vista on it.

If I did a system recovery from my D partition, would that format my entire hard drive or just the C partition?

This post has been edited by Tandy1000: 02 August 2009 - 06:33 PM

Different recovery partitions act differently. What kind of laptop do you have? Some recovery partitions have partitioners built into them; others will just wipe the drive.

I have a hp dv6408nr laptop. However, I went ahead and did a system recovery using the HP recovery program and now I have other problems. I have started a different post here: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic246388.html

I recently clean installed on my desktop and am really regreting it.

Why?...

After several weeks of successful updates, I now get a notice telling me to install SP1. I've been trying to successfully instal SP1 now for days and no matter what I do, I can't install SP1 and no one can seem to assist me in sucessfully installing it.

IMHO, I don't think anyone should clean install on VISTA unless they really have to.

Yes, vista is a beast of an operating system. I realize that, but right now my computer is in a loop at the moment...

Tandy1000, on Aug 3 2009, 10:30 PM, said:

I'd think long and hard about a clean install. If you can live with a slow computer, then better that than to go through a headache of trying to re-install SP1.

I install it SP1 at least once a day, and we have about one every two weeks that gives us trouble. There's the PC repair shop perspective. We usually just reformat again if we have trouble with SP1. It's an odd service pack.