Vista - help! erased hd and cant create partition

i just got a new comp and i had vista installed and i made a xp partition but it was buggy and i couldnt boot into both so i figured id do a clean install so i completely erased my hd from dos at vista install screen and now i have 1 700g drive that says disk 0 unallocated space and when i click next i get a error saying.

Windows could not create a partition on disc 0 This error occured while preparing the systems volume files. error 0x80042558

i cant create a new partition either i get new message. so right now ive got a new comp with no OS and a 700 gig free HD that i cant install vista on. i havent tried xp yet trying it tomrow or whenever i get the disk but idk what to do. please help.

its like my computer wont make partitions

Sounds weird... try perhaps a 3rd party partition tool on a CD or so.. and try wiping it again. Install XP first if you want dual OS (always do the old ones first)... then Vista as vista uses a different boot architecture. (will save ya a lil hassle).

Also .. from yoru error seems as your disk is somewhat locked in a mid install or mid format.. you could try and get a disk diagnostics tool from the manufacturer of yoru harddisk (they also on those tools have factory format.. setting all bits to 0 or so).. should do the trick tbh.

Good luck.

On Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:35:57 -0600, lakmilis <guest@xxxxxx-email.com>
wrote:

You apparently destroyed the Partition table. If you have a Disk
Installation software for the drive manufacturer it can recreate it.
Norton Ghost recovery environment ( a bootable) can recover it.
If you connect it to a system with Windows you can go to
Computer/Management/Storage and then create and format the drive
there.

You have many options. If none of those work you have a defective
disk. You could try Chkdsk to see.

GL.

ok weired it was a 700gig HD and now i made a 250 gig partition and it worked? its like i can only make a certain size partition weird.

ok well like i said im not sure what happend but i tried to create a 250gig partition and it worked even though my whole HD is 700gig and the comp came with 650 gig free. So i instaleld vista and stuff and vid card drivers and everything is back up but now ive got 450 free gig space and i set my bios boot settings to load disc first then HD is that bad. im GUESSING i can just get partition magic and resize this partition to 650 gig without losing my os or data right?

On Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:47:05 -0600, raze1225 <guest@xxxxxx-email.com>
wrote:
As long as it's a version of PM that will work with Vista.

You could always try and see if Vista's Disk Management will do what
you need. It should, if all you want to do is give all the space to
C.

DDW
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i just click extend for that right? and is having my disc bootup first then HD bad? ccause i dont wanna change nething if it aintbroke lol

NO.. you should be fine to change boot order (it is a read operation so it shouldn't screw up your HD at ALL PLUS running the CD first definitely shouldn't affect that :P)

BUT.. your partition table does sound indeed weird... I would be careful trying to extend C to whole disk IF you can't create a partition there in the first place (chances are corrupt disk/sectors) which would yes, crash your C again. Partition Magic was great in XP but I abandoned it in Vista.. early days it f**** up my disc.. maybe thats what happeend to yours... to be honest. LEAVE IT ALONE.

Anyway... It is a different ocmpany now which has something a la PM.. Partition manager rather than magic .. or was that what you said lol..

Either case... do this first:

Right click on computer -> manage (be admin) go to storage managment double click thingy to get to your disks... Now.. you should have unallocated space after C (active , healthy, boot, pagefile, etc) partition. Try and create a new partition in that unallocated first. Use whole , ntfs, quick format (first at least, if not you will wait forever.. although could be needed to try and fix it if its corrupt).

If it works.. it is safe to extend C into that space after deleting it again OR just keeping it or partitioning it further etc.

gl