Unable to re-install windows vista

[Heiski]

So, I have this old family computer, and I decided it was the time for a fresh reinstall. I backed up everything, downloaded a Windows Vista home premium  sp2 64bit iso(should be correct), and created a bootable usb with it. The install workd fine, until the installer asked me to select the volume where to install. When i try to continue, the program gives the following error:

"windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation"

 

I have tied to delete all the volumes in the selection screen of the installer and create a new volume: the same error.  

I have also tried to set the hard drive first in the boot order: no change. 

I even tried re-formatting the hard drive on another PC, but still, nothing. 

 

I don't know if this is relevant, but the windows installer shows the only volume as volume 2, even after the re-formatting.  Could that be the problem?

[TX-OC]

When you select (click on) the volume, there should be a warning sign on the bottom saying what exactly is wrong.

[Sir Asvald]

34 minutes ago, Heiski said:

So, I have this old family computer, and I decided it was the time for a fresh reinstall. I backed up everything, downloaded a Windows Vista home premium  sp2 64bit iso(should be correct), and created a bootable usb with it. The install workd fine, until the installer asked me to select the volume where to install. When i try to continue, the program gives the following error:

"windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation"

 

I have tied to delete all the volumes in the selection screen of the installer and create a new volume: the same error.  

I have also tried to set the hard drive first in the boot order: no change. 

I even tried re-formatting the hard drive on another PC, but still, nothing. 

 

I don't know if this is relevant, but the windows installer shows the only volume as volume 2, even after the re-formatting.  Could that be the problem?

Can I ask, why Vista? did the it come pre-installed with the PC? I'm sure you can get windows 8.1 for cheap on g2a.com and other sites. Then update to windows 10. 

 

[Heiski]

2 hours ago, Abdul201588 said:

Can I ask, why Vista? did the it come pre-installed with the PC? I'm sure you can get windows 8.1 for cheap on g2a.com and other sites. Then update to windows 10. 

 

As I said, the computer is old, and it came pre-installed with Windows Vista. I'd love Windows 10, and I might upgrade it at some point, but I'd rather not use any money on it right now

 

 

2 hours ago, TX-OC said:

When you select (click on) the volume, there should be a warning sign on the bottom saying what exactly is wrong.

No, the warning sign only appears after I've pressed next, and it says What I said earlier: " windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation "

Attached is a picture of the situation.

[Sir Asvald]

3 minutes ago, Heiski said:

As I said, the computer is old, and it came pre-installed with Windows Vista. I'd love Windows 10, and I might upgrade it at some point, but I'd rather not use any money on it right now

 

 

No, the warning sign only appears after I've pressed next, and it says What I said earlier: " windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation "

Attached is a picture of the situation.

Ok, Have you tried to to format it and try it again? Which brand is the HDD?

[0x1e]

I think you've already tried this but just to make sure. You did click Format then Delete?

However that still leaves us with the question why it says partition 2.

 

Do you know how big the HDD is?

[TX-OC]

Have you backed up your data to external drive? if so, i can guide you with full drive format + MBR restoration.Its all done within the install menu from cmd. Beaware though, this will erase all the data on any partion

[Heiski]

1 hour ago, 0x1e said:

I think you've already tried this but just to make sure. You did click Format then Delete?

However that still leaves us with the question why it says partition 2.

 

Do you know how big the HDD is?

Yes, I have indeed tried that. the HDD is Western Digital WD6400AAKS-22A7B0, and the capacity is 640GB. I wonder why it shows little over 6GB too little...

 

 

1 hour ago, TX-OC said:

Have you backed up your data to external drive? if so, i can guide you with full drive format + MBR restoration.Its all done within the install menu from cmd. Beaware though, this will erase all the data on any partion

Yes, all of the data is safe on an external drive. As I said, I have tried formatting the disk on my personal PC, so it is empty anyway, but I guess I failed at some point, Any help would be appreciated!

[TX-OC]

5 minutes ago, Heiski said:

 

 

Yes, all of the data is safe on an external drive. As I said, I have tried formatting the disk on my personal PC, so it is empty anyway, but I guess I failed at some point, Any help would be appreciated!

Once you get to the part where you can chose the partition like you shown in the photo you posted ealier, press SHIFT and F10. this will bring up CMD. Next up type in "diskpart" followed by "list disk". This will show all the drives connected to the pc and will give each one a number. next up type in "select disk x" (change "x" to the number of the drive that you want to format) and then type in "clean". Next type in "convert mbr" once youve done that close the cmd window, press refresh on the list that shows partitions and hopefully this time windows installation wont complain.

[Heiski]

On 4/4/2016 at 4:17 PM, TX-OC said:

Once you get to the part where you can chose the partition like you shown in the photo you posted ealier, press SHIFT and F10. this will bring up CMD. Next up type in "diskpart" followed by "list disk". This will show all the drives connected to the pc and will give each one a number. next up type in "select disk x" (change "x" to the number of the drive that you want to format) and then type in "clean". Next type in "convert mbr" once youve done that close the cmd window, press refresh on the list that shows partitions and hopefully this time windows installation wont complain.

Unfortunately, that did not do it. Well, when I tried to convert to MBR, diskpart complained: 

"The disk you specified is not GPT formatted. Please select an empty GPT disk to continue."

Well, after that I tried to do just that. I first converted to GPT, and the MBR. That seemed to work, but cleaning of course deleted all partitions from the drive and it showed up as unallocated space. Creating new partition from either the GUI or the command prompt just led to the old error. I also tried to format the whole drive to nsft since  I was messing with it already, but nothing. I can't imagine installing an operating system to a empty hard drive could possibly be impossible, even though the software is a little old. Any ideas?

[PalladianPD]

Check out this KB article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/938984

[Heiski]

I'm just posting this to here if anyone has the same problem:

 

This guide worked for me: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-CLEAN-Install-Windows-Vista-directly-from-H/?ALLSTEPS

I needed to connect the HDD to my PC, and follow the guide to copy the ISO to there. I downloaded the ISO from

http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-vista-home-basic-download-iso-32-bit-64-bit/

Only thing in the guide that didn't work for me was the part with bootsect.exe. In the end I copied the exe from my own Windows 10 install and used it with additional

"/force" parameter.