Removing Vista's bootloader?

Drumble

Last year I built a new PC and got Vista for cheap from my university. Seemed worth a shot at the time. After running into frequent networking troubles, I eventually gave up on Vista and went back to XP. However, apparently Vista installed a new bootloader which had rooted itself to my PC and refused to leave. When I tried to install XP, after the restart doing the installation process I got a error reading "Disk Read Error: Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart." Apparently Vista's bootloader won't recognize an XP installation. Eventually, after several days of frustration and trying many different things, I was able to get a dual boot going with Vista and XP.

Today my hard drive died on me. I'd like to take this opportunity to start clean without a useless Vista installation sitting on my computer. But while installing XP on a new hard drive, the same old disk read error popped up. I've tried everything I could find on Google but nothing seems to work.

I just want to get rid of this damn Vista bootloader. Surely there's a way. Reflash my bios? I don't know where the bootloader is stored but it's obviously not on the hard drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Fantasma

Hello,

I am a little confused, did you re-format your hard disk and then started a clean installation?, and I am not talking about a the infamous Quick format, but the full disk format.

Unless the boot sector is unreadable and Vista is there acting like some kind of skin cancer, you should be able to wipe the hard disk and install Windows XP without issues.

Drumble

I'm using a completely different hard drive. It's been fully formatted (not quick) and it's the only hard drive in the system.

If I install Vista on the new hard drive, it will work and boot fine. But an XP install gives me the Disk Read Error. Googling shows there's a lot of variations on this same problem, like this one. But I can't find a solution that works for me.

Drumble

This seems pretty close to my problem.

I just don't understand how this is still happening with a freshly formatted hard drive.

shutz

Oh, I think I know this: is your hard drive SATA, by any chance? The original version of XP came out before SATA drives were available, so regular XP install disks don't know how to access these drives.

I think there's a way to put the needed drivers on a floppy (if you still have a floppy drive) or to slipstream these drivers onto a new XP install disk somehow, but I've never done this. Hopefully, someone else here will be able to fill in what I'm missing and really help you.

Drumble

The drive that died on me was indeed a SATA. However the one I'm trying to use now is IDE, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Again, I can access it and get through the first phase of the XP install, it's only on the restart during the installation that the Vista bootloader refuses to recognize the XP installation.

wunderbar

There is no possible way it's the vista bootloader. the bootloader lives on the hard drive. if you remove the hard drive that had vista on it, the vista bootloader is gone.

where exactly in the XP install do you run into problems?

Drumble

During a normal XP install, after you pick the partition and the files are copied over, the system restarts before it goes into the rest of the installation and setup. During that restart is when I would get the Disk Read Error.


That said, SUCCESS! I brought up the XP recovery console and did a fixmbr and a fixboot, then formatted the hard drive again and installed XP. And it finally worked. I had done both of those already, so I have no idea why it worked this time. Ah well. As long as it's working, I'm happy!