Miscellaneous laptop discussions forum: Unable to proceed OS installation on new hard disk

Why I ask is some drive arrive pre-formatted and I have to delete all partitions or the install fails with a message like that.

Proffitt

It was a brand new internal HDD so i assumed it to be blank. I didnt notice this before though

How do i delete all partitions before re-doing the recovery steps?

I can share I've used GPARTED (free, found with google) and too many other tools and even Windows itself. HOWEVER since this is an OEM RESTORE MEDIA I can't tell if they offer any menu item to address this.

Nod to GPARTED.
Bob

I will check on the GParted but before that was there any mistake in my steps? Is this how a new HDD is installed in the system?

If i am unable to get into the OS - how do i run the GParted?

Boots from a CD you burn yourself after downloading the ISO file. Be sure you know how to burn an image. That's different from burning a file.

Kees

I tried to create an Image CD after downloading the ISO file. Tried putting that onto my other machine- but it did not recognize the same. It was giving me BOOT DISK error - am unable to open GPARTED

You shouldn't try to create the image cd. You should create it.

Did you download IMGBURN (free) to do that (choose "Burn image to disk" if you run it)? Or did you try it in some other way?

Kees

Kees_b

i did not create it using IMGBURN - probably i will do that now. i just copied the ISO onto a CD drive which it did not recognize when i put into the drive on to my VAIO machine

Now i have another question - the VAIO originally had WD5000BEVT HDD when i created the restore disks etc .... but the HDD that i bought now is WD5000BPVT (Adv Format). Do i have to get a new driver for the new HDD?

it will work. If it doesn't work, you can't install it. But I don't expect problems.

As for burning: I explained above that burning an image is different from burning a file. Copying a file to a non-bootable CD doesn't make it bootable. No better way to learn that then seeing it yourself.

Kees

Here we are not doing anything fancy. Just boot it and click on any partition then tap the DELETE key and OK when needed.

We want a blank drive to give the recovery media a clean slate to install to.
Bob

Kees B

I have not created an image before - is there anything specific that i need to do?

Proffitt,

I understand - but when i ran the recovery discs for the first time - why did it create these partitions? I never had any of these partitions in my old hard disk. It created a system reserve drive C: - installed all the OS related to the D:

After connecting the new hard disk - i directly put the Restoration Disk 1 and proceeded with Complete System Restore. I dont know why is that causing an issue.

Installing an OS on D and the error that i am getting - are they really related?

I can't answer that one. Each maker has it's own system and they have never explained why.

All I know is when I use recovery media is to have a blank drive.
Bob