Unable to format main hard drive when installing Vista

Hi All,

I bough Vista Home Premium (not the upgrade) and installed it yesterday
however I have a few questions about the install.

When I was installing Vista, I notice that it did not give an option to
partition the drive. I selected the "Advanced Option" but it only showed the
Format option.

I am using 2 sata drive, the 80 gig for windows and applications and the 300
gig is for storage. When Vista brought up the screen to select which hard
drive to install Vista on, it did not allow me to format my 80 gig.

I wanted to format my 80 gig hard drive to do a clean install on that hard
drive but instead, Vista renamed my old windows directory to be Windows.Old.
Does this mean that Vista didn't reformat my hard drive but just created a
new windows directory?

Is this normal for a Vista install?

Also, since I purchased the retail version, do I have to worry about not
being to reactivate Windows when I add new hardwares?

Thanks

ajaw001 wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I bough Vista Home Premium (not the upgrade) and installed it yesterday
> however I have a few questions about the install.
>
> When I was installing Vista, I notice that it did not give an option to
> partition the drive. I selected the "Advanced Option" but it only showed the
> Format option.
>
> I am using 2 sata drive, the 80 gig for windows and applications and the 300
> gig is for storage. When Vista brought up the screen to select which hard
> drive to install Vista on, it did not allow me to format my 80 gig.
>
> I wanted to format my 80 gig hard drive to do a clean install on that hard
> drive but instead, Vista renamed my old windows directory to be Windows.Old.
> Does this mean that Vista didn't reformat my hard drive but just created a
> new windows directory?
>
> Is this normal for a Vista install?

Yes, if you run the Vista installer from inside XP. The fix is to boot
directly from the Vista DVD instead. Some people have had trouble using
SATA drives under these conditions, but I can't explain why.

>
> Also, since I purchased the retail version, do I have to worry about not
> being to reactivate Windows when I add new hardwares?

You may need to telephone MS to re-validate after new hardware, but I
hear that it's not difficult.