New HDD on older desktop. Windows not installing

[Dilligaff]

Even though I still have and use my Amega 500 punched up to 1meg. I have another 4 pc,s But I like my HP Media Center desktop circa 2006. my problem is the HDD finally died . I replaced it with a legacy 1 tb hdd (350 over OEM, not advanced format). I have used recovery disks a number of times and finally got the OS to boot after using the commands oobe and msoobe. but I still get windows setup could not configure windows to run on this computer's hardware.
I have downloaded the newest drivers from intel for my chipset and HDD driver files as a exe file. using 7zip to search the exe. I can not find the .INF to force the driver to install . Any suggestions?????

 

[Dilligaff]

Just a note I have changed my BIOS to AHCI rather than RAID. Formatted the hdd clean. But I'm using the recovery discs created by this pc. . I tried to force install a copy of vista home premium But no go. changed boot order. I have tried every trick I know to no avail. I really do not want to change out the desktop with a new one as I'm not working at the moment and cant afford it. Searching the inter-web gives me too many responses to even figure out what to click on. I will try and search this site and hopefully find the fix. But the admins have to fix the search options.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

I'm trying to remember if Vista recovery discs will provide full OS install...you may need OS media... alternatives?..have you tried Ubuntu?

 

[bazz2004]

In your position I'd forget about recovery disks and check whether you have the original Vista installation disk. If you don't, make sure that you have the Microsoft validation key for Vista on your computer and download an ISO of the exact version of Vista that your key will activate. It may take a while to find what you need but it's out there. You can then burn the ISO to a disk or you may be able to install from a USB stick.

 

[Dilligaff]

I have found and burned an image of Vista Home premium. No go. bootable dvd would lot load.

 

[bazz2004]

Have you tried it in the drive of another computer just to check that the disk is not corrupted? If it doesn't work find another download or burn a disk with different software. If the disk is OK try installing from a Ubuntu or Linux ISO as Cycloid suggested. That way you'll know whether or not there is an issue with the new hard drive.

 

[Dilligaff]

I think you might be right. Ill download a Linux OS and give it a shot.

 

[bazz2004]

Making a Windows installation disk isn't easy because Microsoft copy protection is superb. For a couple of pounds you could buy a disk on eBay. It should be very cheap because you already have the required validation key. Just be careful that what you get is able to do a fresh install rather than a repair. You need the same version of Vista as an option for the install. Don't forget that you may need to change the Boot order in the BIOS so your DVD drive or USB stick is looked at first.