My computer won't do a fresh install of Windows Vista !

[shadyshabby]

Hello,

Long story short, I have been trying to do a fresh install of vista, but everytime I do it takes MORE of my hard drive space.

I looked up all the guides online and they just walk you through the basic steps, which I have been doing.

My windows vista x64 doesn't give me any options to do a clean install. It just prompts me steop by step to do a normal install which successfully takes more of my hard drive space (when I am trying to free it up).

Pls help !!! I am going crazy here !

 

[CalvinHobbes]

See if this helps:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918884

Is your copy an upgrade version or a full version of vista?

 

[armstrda]

When you get to the disk selection, select the disk that you have it on and click Erase Partition or whatever the choice is (be sure you've backed everything up as that will wipe your whole drive!)

 

[shadyshabby]

Unfortuenetly, it doesn't give me that option.

I only have the install option.

I found out that a good chunk of the old stuff is stored in windows.old. I deleted all of it and I'm back up to 550/594 gb (it's a 640gb drive which makes that even more confusing).

My head hurts

 

[mc866]

If you don't have any info on your drive you want to keep burn a copy of DBAN and boot to it to format your entire drive. Once that's done do the full install with the Vista disc.

 

[armstrda]

You need to click advanced options at this screen:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/f...set-72157594490796701/

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: shadyshabby
Unfortuenetly, it doesn't give me that option.

I only have the install option.

I found out that a good chunk of the old stuff is stored in windows.old. I deleted all of it and I'm back up to 550/594 gb (it's a 640gb drive which makes that even more confusing).

My head hurts

A 640GB hard drive should format to about 596GB so what exactly is the problem?

 

[shadyshabby]

Originally posted by: mc866
If you don't have any info on your drive you want to keep burn a copy of DBAN and boot to it to format your entire drive. Once that's done do the full install with the Vista disc.

Wish I knew what that meant. I'm not very tech saavy

 

[shadyshabby]

Originally posted by: armstrda
You need to click advanced options at this screen:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/f...set-72157594490796701/

Gonna try that. Thanks for going out of your way !

Appreciate it

Originally posted by: SilentRunning

Originally posted by: shadyshabby
Unfortuenetly, it doesn't give me that option.

I only have the install option.

I found out that a good chunk of the old stuff is stored in windows.old. I deleted all of it and I'm back up to 550/594 gb (it's a 640gb drive which makes that even more confusing).

My head hurts

A 640GB hard drive should format to about 596GB so what exactly is the problem?

Well, that's good news.

 

[mc866]

Originally posted by: shadyshabby

Originally posted by: mc866
If you don't have any info on your drive you want to keep burn a copy of DBAN and boot to it to format your entire drive. Once that's done do the full install with the Vista disc.

Wish I knew what that meant. I'm not very tech saavy

Not sure if you'll need the info now but here it is anyway

DBAN is a bootable program that will allow you to format your drive. When I say bootable I mean you can download an image( .iso file) of the program by clicking the link above and burning it to a cd as long as you have a cd burner. I've found that ImgBurn works the best to burn .iso images to cd.

Once the CD is complete put it in your drive and restart, when you are prompted to boot to cd press any key much like you would to boot to the Vista disc.