Removing incomplete Vista installs form HD

[tibailey]

In the act of trying to get my Velocity computer up and running (new P.S.U. and CDRom Drive) from a power spike at home I loaded 3 copies of Vista on the HD as I figgled with the BIOS boot order. To make a long story short: I was not able to get the system to boot and correctly complete the install of Vista and then Windows 7 (got a Windows upgrade disk with the machine years ago and had it, Win.7 running after the first week.). Now I have 3 incomplete installs of Vista sitting on the HD and I would like to get them off so I can make room for better things. How do I do this? Thanks!

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello tibailey several ways of doing this depending on what you want to be left with. Now I can tell you from experience if you want to get Vista back on unless you have the original disk then there is no ISO you can access though having said that why would you need Vista?

So do you have some way of wiping / erasing that drive? as in access to another machine with an OS running? Just as an afterthought how old is the drive?

 

[Night Hawk]

I think a good idea would be taking a look at the Disk Management tool in order to see just how many partitions are on the drive. 3 failed Vista installs could be to just one other primary or you could have two or three in additional to the 7 C primary.

 

[gregrocker]

It isn't even required to have Vista installed to use Win7 upgrade version.

Follow these same steps to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 booting the Win7 installer to delete all partitions.

If it sees an OS it will accept the Upgrade Product Key.

If it rejects the Upgrade Product Key, skip the Product Key during install, then aferwards do Option 3 from Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version to activate Upgrade version on a new or wiped HD.

 

[Night Hawk]

When you mention "fiddling with the bios" I have the suspicion that you left the optical drive as first in the boot order or with more then one hard drive installed a second or third drive got bumped to the default position at the top of the list of drives and why the previous installation attempts are not being able to complete themselves!

We could still use a look at the Disk Management tool if you can reply back with a snipping tool capture of how that looks to see what partitions as well as how many drives are installed there. When going to install Windows from dvd one tip to save on booting problems is to call up the boot device menu to select the CD Rom option when going to install Windows rather then going back and forth into the bios setup to change the boot order.

That will be a simple press on the F key assigned for that right at post time where you then select the drive you will be booting from. On Asus boards for example that would be the F8 key while other makes use the F4, F11, F12 keys instead. On Gigabyte you press the F12. This brings up the one time session option to select which drive you want.

By leaving the OS drive as the default in the bios once you select the optical drive and the installer copies all setup files over to the main drive you then see the installation proceed on and complete itself once the initial restart sees the installation continue when the hard drive loads without the need to rush back into the bios.

 

[tibailey]

Sorry for not getting back sooner, just got the email (2-5-2013) that replies had been posted.
gregrocker, yep, I finally realized that after the Win 7 disk loaded on its own.
IC, went ahead and did the "wipe clean' and started with just Win 7 on the formatted partition. I'll clean out the old partition when I finally have solved this additional problem: I can't get audio drivers to load. Have a MB tha comes with Realtek integrated. I do not have room for a sound card so I must go with the MB set up. I do not have sound. I do have the MS HDMI drivers loaded.(tried uninstalling them then rebooting, drivers loaded and ready to use.) But still no sound. Went to Realtek's site and downloaded their HD sound drivers and restarted, still no joy. What more do I have to do to get the Realtek thumping along nicely so I can get back to life as I knew it?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Sorry for not getting back sooner, just got the email (2-5-2013) that replies had been posted.
gregrocker, yep, I finally realized that after the Win 7 disk loaded on its own.
IC, went ahead and did the "wipe clean' and started with just Win 7 on the formatted partition. I'll clean out the old partition when I finally have solved this additional problem: I can't get audio drivers to load. Have a MB tha comes with Realtek integrated. I do not have room for a sound card so I must go with the MB set up. I do not have sound. I do have the MS HDMI drivers loaded.(tried uninstalling them then rebooting, drivers loaded and ready to use.) But still no sound. Went to Realtek's site and downloaded their HD sound drivers and restarted, still no joy. What more do I have to do to get the Realtek thumping along nicely so I can get back to life as I knew it?

Get an Asus Xonar DG card and forget the rest (and the grief)

 

[tibailey]

Don't have the slots for it: Asus Xonar DG card. I agree Asus makes some nice equiptment. I have dual ATI 4800 graph. cards. the extra slot is 'tween the cards me man! Not to be done.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Don't have the slots for it: Asus Xonar DG card. I agree Asus makes some nice equiptment. I have dual ATI 4800 graph. cards. the extra slot is 'tween the cards me man! Not to be done.

Yep that is a shame Ti I would have had a similar problem with a Gigabyte board if I had dual GPU's - no room.

I suppose one GPU perhaps an upgrade? is out of the question either that or if it is the mobo giving up well it will have to go eh?

 

[tibailey]

IC, is it possible that my Realtek sound processor is fried from the power spike and everything else is fine? I did go to the RealteK site downloaded and ran set up for driver and restarted...no change no sound. Nope a Vid Card upgrade is not out of the question. So I'd run the sound off a separate sound card and buy a vid. card as well?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

IC, is it possible that my Realtek sound processor is fried from the power spike and everything else is fine? I did go to the RealteK site downloaded and ran set up for driver and restarted...no change no sound. Nope a Vid Card upgrade is not out of the question. So I'd run the sound off a separate sound card and buy a vid. card as well?

Yes I must admit that the spike only having affected the audio is sorta odd but not out of the question.

Now I know I am going over old ground again but what is indicated in the Device Manager for the Realtek?

Now as for the GPU's i don't know much about them to be honest I was just thinking one heavy duty job as opposed to two lighter ones and so free up the space for the sound card. I know you can spend a fair bit of money on graphic cards and it really is a toss up between an expensive GPU or an expensive motherboard.

But just see what is in the DM for now.

 

[gregrocker]

If you followed the steps to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
and not XP, then you'd have only provided the LAN driver to get online to do all rounds of Important and Optional Updates after enabling Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3).

Once all Updates are done then import any missing in Device Manager, no more.

 

[tibailey]

The Device Mgr. only shows the 2 Microsoft HDMI Audio drivers that load by default. But no realteK name shows anywhere other than in prog. I'm at work and not at machine otherwise I'd open the software and see what all it is.

 

[gregrocker]

Type Troubleshoot in Start Search box. Run the Audio Playback troubleshooter.

If this doesn't reveal the problem, roll back any driver you installed in Device manager to the one given by installer. Enable auto hardware drivers if you haven't already and run Windows Updates.

If these drivers do not work, do you know the exact device model? If not trace it using Hardware Identification.

 

[tibailey]

gregrocker, I'll try these prob. solvers when I get home today. Thanks!
How do I enable auto hardware drivers in Win.updates? Do not ever remebering seeing that setting before.

 

[gregrocker]

Did you read the tutorial?

 

[tibailey]

Sound on MB is fried...thanks

 

[Night Hawk]

Ouch! on the doa audio chip! This is one reason I always added a separate card in just in case the card goes I would still have the onboard to work with. There are some usb options to consider however since you have the PCIe 1x slots taken up. You can see a number of those at newegg two channel, 5.1 and 7.1 surround Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Input Devices, Sound Cards, USB

On the 7 Pro x64 case I have here I went with the Realtek onooard since the micro atx board only offered two PCI slots laeaving them open for a nic card and tv tuner card if the 7 Ultimate case is down for any reason. Otherwise I leave that for remote desktop projects.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

What a pain Ti well it is either the option I suggested or a new mobo. Did you try grgs post on a another clean install ?

Now depending on the age of it mate you have got weigh up whether to start from scratch and build yourself a new machine - I would if the budget allows go an Intel 1155 socket set up it just needs a bit of costing for that as against a large GPU a sound card (shame about that slot) and perhaps still being left with a motherboard that has seen better days. It would be just your luck to do all that and something else go down the gurgler.

If you need advice and help on a new build there are heaps of very experienced members in here to guide you and besides you get the satisfaction of knowing you have done it yourself.

 

[Night Hawk]

If you are not able to find that exact same board newegg has some Gigabyte models you can look over at Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Motherboards, Intel Motherboards, GIGABYTE

And you can get them with more PCIe slots as well for any PCIe sound card you want to add in.