Unable to install windows from boot disc

[MikeDIII]

Hey all,

A friend asked me to fix his Acer desktop with Vista on it. I'm pretty sure the hard drive he had was no good, the old one was making a racket and the computer would not boot up. I have replaced the hard drive with a spare from a parts computer. I changed the bios so that the computer will boot only from the cd drive. Booting from the new hard drive is disabled. I had to create an ISO dvd version of Vista because he doesnt have the disc but the case does have a valid cd key so I plan to use that. I have confirmed that the disc works by booting another computer from the disc.

The problem I am having is that when my friends computer tries to boot from the iso dvd I get a black screen (bios?) that says something like: Failure to boot, please enter a valid boot disc and press enter (I cant recall the exact message). I tried hooking up a spare dvd drive and sill get the same message.

Any suggestions as to how I might make this work? Could there be another hardware issue with the computer like the mobo or ram?

 

[Cobalt006]

You may need to set the hard drive up to boot after the cd in order for the cd to install Vista. You say you disable the hard drive in the bios, You should have just made it to boot up after the cdrom booted.

 

[MikeDIII]

Thank you for your response. I did try that actually, the first couple times I tried booting with the HD on as secondary. When I had it set up this way I would get the failed to boot from CD message and then it would automaticaly try to boot from the HD which failed to start and brought up startup repair. Startup repair did not work. Im not sure if the replacement hard drive has a working OS on it or not. Thanks again for any comments/suggestions.

 

[Cobalt006]

That could very well be your problem . You may need to format the replacement drive if it has a different os on it.

 

[MikeDIII]

Thanks again Cobalt Is there a way I can format the drive if I cant boot up? Also, I was thinking of putting the HD in my PC and tryint to install Vista on the HD, then putting it back in friends PC. Is there risk that I may cause damage to my PC if I try that? Also I was wondering, could this be a bad motherboard or RAM problem? It beeps like it's supposed to when powered up and I havn't had any messages regarding memory. When trying to boot from the HD Windows starts to boot for a second and then starts startup repair. It says the startup failure may be caused by new hardware installation (the new HD?). As I mentioned the startup repair does not work and then forces you to shut down.

 

[Cobalt006]

You could put the hard drive in your machine and format it, But don't install vista on . This will cause a whole other set of problems if you install the os on the drive. The drivers for your motherboard will not be the same as the machine you are trying to repair.. Or you can use a program called disk wipe . It will wipe the disk you want to use on the computer you repairing clean. It will be like installing a hard drive that has never been used. You can get it at www.diskwipe.org

I have used a couple of times on old hard drives and I have had good luck with it.

Start up repair starts on this disk due to it has a os in it that belonged to another computer.
So I really don't think their is a problem with your hardware.

 

[MikeDIII]

Well I finally got it done! I put the HD in my computer, formatted it, and installed Vista (I did it before your post about not doing that). I put the HD in the fixer pc and WALLAH! it worked. Like you said, It did cause a problem with the mobo drivers but I was able to find and download the driver from another pc and put it on a disc. The drivers installed without a hitch and now everything works great. Thank you so much for all of you help Cobalt!

 

[Cobalt006]

Your welcome. Glad to here it is up and running!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!