Author Topic: stupid stupid vista (Read 9498 times)

Inigo Montoya · « **Reply #25 on:** April 08, 2009, 12:37:17 PM »

You might find ubuntu or gparted(same as on ubuntu) will probably do the trick. If you do the ubuntu route, I think the gparted is under the administrative area. At the top left is apps and the n2 other selections. I cant remember off hand and do not have ubuntu at hand. It should be the third selection though.

heffay · « **Reply #26 on:** April 08, 2009, 12:38:48 PM »

its thinkin' real hard right now trying to turn 600gb harddrive to zeros.
i'm gonna step back and give it some breathing room.

333 · « **Reply #27 on:** April 08, 2009, 02:03:25 PM »

The other thing you might try is to go to the websites for these things that don't work and see if they have Vista drivers. I have had to do this for the peripherals hooked to my Vista machines.

heffay · « **Reply #28 on:** April 08, 2009, 02:22:36 PM »

its 32 bit vista vs 64

we went and bought a 32 bit vista system and it sucks a$$.

so, i'm nuking the powerful 64bit one... 5 gb ram, 600 mb storage... xp media center will be nice.

this ms dos eraser program that i've got running is moving slowly but surely... only 47 hours left, 4% woohooo.

Blasbo · « **Reply #29 on:** April 08, 2009, 02:40:04 PM »

Yep, you are on the correct path. The only way that I know of to get rid of Vista that is pre-installed is to format and start over.
I haven't had much trouble with Vista, I've been running it over a year, but I sure don't see a compelling reason to upgrade.

Inigo Montoya · « **Reply #30 on:** April 08, 2009, 02:57:50 PM »

gparted is a 50M download. About.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=271779

choose the iso and burn it to disk. It will be a lot faster.

heffay · « **Reply #31 on:** April 08, 2009, 03:59:05 PM »

giving your gparted a shot... should i format to ntfs or fat32? is the 32 for 32bit because the software is built specifically for 32 bit operating systems.

bastards.

mlinder · « **Reply #32 on:** April 08, 2009, 04:02:58 PM »

No. NTFS. win2k, xp and vista are ntfs file format.

heffay · « **Reply #33 on:** April 08, 2009, 04:05:31 PM »

thats what i thought... thanks m

heffay · « **Reply #34 on:** April 08, 2009, 04:13:23 PM »

ok... same thing... completely formatted the POS

mlinder · « **Reply #35 on:** April 08, 2009, 04:51:40 PM »

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread. You get that error while formatting?

heffay · « **Reply #36 on:** April 08, 2009, 04:58:55 PM »

supposedly, the computer's formatted and ready to go... that message is promptly after trying to install xp

now, when i try to run the gparted cd... right when it loads, the screen goes crazy and that's it.

gparted was working like a charm.

now, just another reason i hate vista... i've done this a hundred times on other systems.

heffay · « **Reply #37 on:** April 08, 2009, 05:00:34 PM »

i could take a video but i doubt it would be very helpful

ev0lve · « **Reply #38 on:** April 08, 2009, 07:52:10 PM »

Kind of a crazed idea BUT... if you have a USB drive enclosure try slapping it in there, hooking it to another machine and formatting NTFS as normal from there. Don't do the quick format.

That's about the last thing I can think of if none of the utilities you have will boot and wipe the drive. Might work. Should work.

There's also this fun little utility which ought to leave you with a drive you can format as well.
Boot and nuke
http://www.dban.org/

Good hunting!

heffay · « **Reply #39 on:** April 09, 2009, 06:45:42 AM »

i have drive enclosures for laptop hard drives but i don't think those are the same.

the weird thing is i can get stuff to boot (for the most part)... its just gparted weirds out right at the end.... its like the signal to the screen turns goofy (i know, hightly technical term) and the monitor automatically goes dead.

i keep getting the message... bootmgr is missing... but that shouldn't matter if i'm able to boot from cd and if i intend to unstall xp.
that blue screen message is the one i think i'm fighting... the fact that it says anything about windows leads me to believe there is still vista stuff on there.

heffay · « **Reply #40 on:** April 09, 2009, 07:11:39 AM »

dban running... i wouldn't say "running" is the proper term... 178 hours remaining
i doubt i'll stick w/ dban as it is working at a rate of KB/s... basically a MB at a time.
we're now in the 600+ hours remaining range.

i already hate this computer and i've really only been in contact for a day.

mlinder · « **Reply #41 on:** April 09, 2009, 07:30:38 AM »

Theres a hardware issue, heffay. Lemme get to work, and I'll see what I can do to help you. Running late.

heffay · « **Reply #42 on:** April 09, 2009, 07:33:45 AM »

well, i'm gonna let this junker run and go to work too.
i'll be back on this evening... any help anyone has is greatly appreciated.

heffay · « **Reply #43 on:** April 09, 2009, 07:42:06 AM »

i think why it says its going to take about a month is because it is set to do 3 passes in its 1 run... that means it will be covering 1.8 terabytes at a current rate of 2332KB/s

yippee

mlinder · « **Reply #44 on:** April 09, 2009, 08:36:31 AM »

heffay, I do this for a living.
I'll probably have you stop what youa re doing, and run some other tests. I'll also need some info about the machine.

ev0lve · « **Reply #45 on:** April 09, 2009, 08:54:08 AM »

1.8 TBs? Is this a RAID array of some sort? Did I miss that?

heffay · « **Reply #46 on:** April 09, 2009, 09:24:48 AM »

yes, raid system... only 600gb but multiply that by 3 passes and you've got 1800 gb.

linder... i might be able to answer a few now.... shoot.
if i can't... i'll be home later and in front of it again.

mlinder · « **Reply #47 on:** April 09, 2009, 09:36:24 AM »

I need full computer specs. Also, what raid are you running? And what controller are you using for the raid?
What version of the XP cd is it?

ev0lve · « **Reply #48 on:** April 09, 2009, 09:39:59 AM »

Hmmm, maybe it is a driver issue then?

On the random anecdote action I went to ghost a drive (single drive) on a Dell machine and when it got done I had no ghost and a wiped drive. Very disconcerting. Seems that machine was running the single drive as a raid array by default (I was unaware you could do that much less why you would do that) and the utility I was using couldn't figure it out. Sounds kind of familiar with the blow up at the end for gparted.

At any rate, maybe a clue? Time to redo the array first then install XP?

Sorry if this has already been covered.

heffay · « **Reply #49 on:** April 09, 2009, 10:26:08 AM »

Quote from: mlinder on April 09, 2009, 09:36:24 AM

I need full computer specs. Also, what raid are you running? And what controller are you using for the raid?
What version of the XP cd is it?

i have two XP cds... one media center and one home version.
they came w/ previous computers but i've had no trouble installing on different computers.
as for the raid question... i don't know... where would i find that when i get home?

iggy... i got maybe 25% of that...

one thing that is entirely different on xp cd boot is it is not the usual xp setup screen... just a blue windows setup... then it says starting windows... acts like it might work... then goes to the blue screen i posted.

sorry guys... i guess we'll postpone this till i get home.

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Author Topic: stupid stupid vista (Read 9498 times)