[kevvyb]

Have a friends PC to fix. Hard drive appears to ahve gone belly up. Cannot read fully, clicking etc.
Have new hard drive and trying to install Vista from the MESH recovery CD is giving odd result.

Install goes fine until reboot. BIOS gives option to 'ESC to boot' but doing so just takes me round again with the previous install of vista being moved to allow for the next install.

Pressing ESC to boot gives another dos command to press any key to boot from CD. This prompts another reinstallation. Trying anythign else just results in DOS disk read error.

I am not inexperienced in reinstalling operation systems. I have tried settign BIOS back to boot from hard drive as MESH advise that disk is not needed for rest of installation process.

Same result.

The new hard drive is partitioned with a GB primary active partition for the system and the rest (400GB or so) a logical partition for data.

I am corresponding on the MESH forum but this is painfully slow as posts cannot be read until moderator has allowed them and they are not coming up with much.

BTW there is only 1GB RAM so it's not the 'Vista doesn't install with 2GB RAM or over' issue.
Can anyone give me any pointers? I have searched on web but have not found much but maybe I am searching for the wrong thing.

[philthomas]

Are you sure the Recovery Disk you have, actually comtains Windows ? ..... many Recovery Disks simply contain a utility to access and restore from a hidden partition on the HDD, that contains an original image of the OS, at Factory install.

If this is the case, your Recovery Doisk is no good any more ......... you will need a Windows Installation Disk, as your new drive will not have the hidden partition.

[kevvyb]

I am told by the vendor and the documentation confirms this, that the recovery disk contains a full version of windows. I will check with them again though.

[philthomas]

just explore the disk and see what's on it

[kevvyb]

MESH have confirmed again that nothing else is needed to reinstall other than the disk. No access to hard drive recovery partition is required. It is a standalone installation disk.

Had already taken a look on the disk and as far as I can see it looks like it has the required files althoug it obviously does not look like the files on a full retail OEM disk which is what I am used to installing from.

[philthomas]

Recovery Disks can often be a PIA ..... it might be worth making a copy of the disk, just in case the optical drive is having read problems. Also, if the disk has become corrupted/unreadable, this will show up when making a copy.

[kevvyb]

PIA....?

[philthomas]

Pain in the Ar$e

[kevvyb]

You can say that again. My first PC came from Mesh and within weeks I had ro reinstall the operating system. First time I tried, the recovery disk did not work and they suggested I return the machine to them. I didn't bother and bought my own copy of windows. MESH were pathetic.

8 years later, friend buys a Mesh pc. Recovery disk does not work!!

Some things in life never change.

[kevvyb]

Win 7 install same result so it is not the MESH installation CD. Could it be hardware related.

Maybe that old keyboard getting in the way....? Something funny is happening with the keyboard indicator lights. Just noticed that even with machine switched off two lights remain on. Something I have not seen before. Am going to plug in my other keyboard and a wired mouse to see if that gets me anywhere.

Am barking totally up the wrong tree...?