Vista - "Windows is unable to find a system volume..."

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a
problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.

I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full
80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition
on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When
selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I
press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that
meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual
drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with
setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing
from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a
possible solution for this?

Have you tried extracting the contents of the ISO to a directory and run
setup from the directory?
--
Andre
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
"Grope For Luna" <Grope For Luna@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:EC793905-3F25-4C07-AAC1-EC15FBD6B260@microsoft.com...
> I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had
> such a
> problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
> releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
>
> I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full
> 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first
> partition
> on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either.
> When
> selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I
> press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that
> meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a
> virtual
> drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition
> with
> setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing
> from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a
> possible solution for this?

"Andre Da Costa [Extended64]" wrote:
> Have you tried extracting the contents of the ISO to a directory and run
> setup from the directory?

I tried it but, predictably, no go.

I tried to install the 5308 beta and it gave me the same result, so it's
something to do with the particular hardware configuration I have.

I'm having the same issue. Trying to install on an 80gb hard drive that has
been freshly formatted. I set the partition and formatted the drive in vista
and it wont let me install on this drive.



"Grope For Luna" wrote:

> I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a
> problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
> releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
>
> I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full
> 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition
> on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When
> selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I
> press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that
> meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual
> drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with
> setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing
> from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a
> possible solution for this?

I am having similar issues. I am getting the same error:

Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for
installation.

I have a 100GB Drive that I have partitioned using Partition Commander,
which is correctly recognized by the installer:

Disk 0 Partition 1 10.0GB 1.8GB Primary
Disk 0 Partition 2 10.0GB 0.0MB Primary
Disk 0 Partition 3 15.0GB 14.9GB Primary
Disk 0 Partition 4 2.0GB 0.0MB Logical
Disk 0 Partition 5 DATA 56.4GB 46.8GB Logical

Disk 0 Partition 1 is NTFS on which I already have Windows XP Pro installed.
Disk 0 Partition 2 is Linux partition on which I have a Linux OS installed.
Disk 0 Partition 3 is a NTFS 15GB partition on which I want to install Vista
Beta2.
Disk 0 Partition 4 is Linux Swap partition
Disk 0 Partition 5 is a FAT-32 partition for data common to all OSes.

I formatted the Disk 0 Partition 3 with Vista Installer. I can see that that
partition is selected automatically by Vista Installer and the Next button is
highlighted. When I click on Next button I get the

Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for
installation.

Osho

"AmdEmAll" wrote:

> I'm having the same issue. Trying to install on an 80gb hard drive that has
> been freshly formatted. I set the partition and formatted the drive in vista
> and it wont let me install on this drive.
>
>
>
> "Grope For Luna" wrote:
>
> > I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a
> > problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
> > releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
> >
> > I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full
> > 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition
> > on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When
> > selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I
> > press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that
> > meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual
> > drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with
> > setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing
> > from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a
> > possible solution for this?

"AmdEmAll" wrote:

> I'm having the same issue. Trying to install on an 80gb hard drive that has
> been freshly formatted. I set the partition and formatted the drive in vista
> and it wont let me install on this drive.
>
>
>
> "Grope For Luna" wrote:
>
> > I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a
> > problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
> > releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
> >
> > I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full
> > 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition
> > on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When
> > selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I
> > press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that
> > meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual
> > drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with
> > setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing
> > from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a
> > possible solution for this?

I am having the same issue as well. Has anyone found a solution?

"Grope For Luna" wrote:

> I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a
> problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
> releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
>

I too was having this problem. I was using a WD 30GB drive. I tried it fresh
and pre-partitioned using Partition Magic & the Vista Installer. The 30GB
drive was my primary IDE master with a slave attached. But one curious thing
is the Vista installer kept offering to use the primary slave drive instead.

Just now I changed the drive config by disconnecting the primary slave and
changing the drive jumper on the 30GB drive to 'only' drive.

I didn't get the system volume error and Vista is happily installing as I
type this.

What does it all mean? I don't have a clue!
RichB

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:03:01 -0700, Grope For Luna <Grope For
Luna@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a
>problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous
>releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
>
>I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full
>80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition
>on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When
>selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I
>press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that
>meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual
>drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with
>setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing
>from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a
>possible solution for this?

Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary
partition.)

"andy" wrote:
> Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary
> partition.)

WD 80GB IDE Drive Primary Master

C: 15GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Active primary partition with x64) 9GB free
D: 60GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Primary partition for programs) 30GB free