[Ethan_Kaizer]

I've got a dvd of Vista which works fine, and my DVD drive works fine as well. I want to completely reinstall Vista. So, I go into the BIOS, change the boot sequence to have my dvd drive boot first, with the Vista cd in it, and it just doesn't load it, and starts my hard drive. What can I do to fix this, or is it possible to reinstall Vista completely by just loading up the disc while Vista is already running? Or do I have to boot from it?

[Lexluethar]

Is this the exact same version of Vista?

Double check your BIOS settings and which drive you are booting to first, because the Vista CD should be booting if it is chosen first in the boot priority list.

Is this a burnt copy or legit straight out of the box DVD? My first thought was maybe this is a copied DVD and it wasn't burned correctly on the copy DVD.

[Ethan_Kaizer]

Originally Posted by Lexluethar

Is this the exact same version of Vista?

Double check your BIOS settings and which drive you are booting to first, because the Vista CD should be booting if it is chosen first in the boot priority list.

Is this a burnt copy or legit straight out of the box DVD? My first thought was maybe this is a copied DVD and it wasn't burned correctly on the copy DVD.

It's a copy of an original, which I HAVE used before though, and it's worked perfectly. It is the exact same version of Vista, and the same hardware too.

I can run the setup right now when I'm on Vista, but I don't know how to go about a complete reinstall that way. When I started going into the setup, it asked me if I wanted to save data and just reinstall Vista, or do a custom reinstall, which I hit custom, and tried to use the same partition, and it said it would keep the old stuff in a file called "Windows.old". Can I just erase Windows.old when I'm done and my install would be just like new?

[eyeCpc]

The Windows.old folder is simply a roll up of the current installation's folders where you copy everything you want out of it before simply sending it on it's journey to nowhere. If you have nothing on the drive now to worry about simply delete that when the fresh copy is on.

The main problem often seen when setting the cd rom option as the first boot device is that you may not see the "press any key now" message appear in order to boot from an optical drive. If you see an option for a boot device menu you can select the optical drive there and leave the hard drive set as first in the boot order to see Windows reinstalled.

[Ethan_Kaizer]

Thanks a bunch man. I've got everything I need already backed up on DVDs and my old ipod video which I use as an external, so I'll go ahead and do that.

[nderscore]

When you said you have used it before, was it bootable? If it wasn't then the process is not as simple as copying and pasting files. You have to make a bootable .iso image first. A similar approach is documented with the following link: How To: Slipstream Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1 | Maximum PC