SDC

Forgive me, I am completely new to Vista. This is my first install and my
first look the the OE.

I have just built a computer - Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 775 with a 2.44ghz quad
core, 4 gb of RAM (DDR2 PC2-8500), Creative X-Fi Fatality sound card, GeForce
8600 (512mb) video, WD 1.0 Terabyte HD, WD 500gb HD, Asus DVD-ROM,
WriteMaster DVD Multi Drive. You get the picture. All HD and optical drives
are SATA.

Anyway, upon attempting to install Vista on a clean hard drive (everything
is brand new out of the box), I either get to a point where there is an error
stating that the boot manager is missing or corrupt, or I can actually get to
the Windows Vista screen to install and get to the point where it is
expanding the files -- when this error occurs:

Windows cannot access the required file D:/Sources/Install.wim. Make sure
all files required for installation are available and restart the
application. Error code 0x800701E7

I have looked for the SATA drivers on the mobo disk and the only ones I have
found pertain to RAID, which I am not running. I want to use the 500gb drive
as the primary (windows and applications) and the terabyte drive as a data
drive.

What am I doing wrong? I don't see any place to format the drive like you
could in WinXP.

I have tried going to the computer repair module, then to the command prompt
and trying bcdedit as instructed in another forum. That only caused another
error: "The boot configuration data store could not be opened. The system
cannot find the file specified".

Installing an OS should not be this difficult...but apparently I am either
missing something or I have a flaky Vista disk.

Please advise!

Thanks.