Ok, I'm having a HECK of a time here.

cpt.obvious

New Member
So, I had RAID enabled. But I only formatted one hard drive, not the other. So, I wanted to set my drives back to regular discs. 640 gig SATA. Than reinstall Vista. Well, all I wanted to do was reformat than reinstall. But, it's not letting me.

When I DID have Vista and RAID going, I had to go into BIOS-Storage Configuration- Than set it to RAID which default it was IDE (Enhanced).

Now, I tried to install it to a Unallocated Space and I get "Windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid system volume"? Than I hit "OK" than it starts all over again.

What? All I want is to format my hard drives than re-install Vista. But nothing is going right.
 
Last edited:
So, I had RAID enabled. But I only formatted one hard drive, not the other. So, I wanted to set my drives back to regular discs. 640 gig SATA. Than reinstall Vista. Well, all I wanted to do was reformat than reinstall. But, it's not letting me.

When I DID have Vista and RAID going, I had to go into BIOS-Storage Configuration- Than set it to RAID which default it was IDE (Enhanced).

Now, I tried to install it to a Unallocated Space and I get "Windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid system volume"? Than I hit "OK" than it starts all over again.

What? All I want is to format my hard drives than re-install Vista. But nothing is going right.

You have to format the space first.
 

cpt.obvious

New Member
lol how.. And where do I go. I don't have any OS installed anymore.

What about a program like Cute Partition Manager?
 
Last edited:

cpt.obvious

New Member
Anyone? This is really getting to me.

So, do I have to delete my partitions, than format. THAN re-install Windows?

If so, it's not letting me.
 
Last edited:

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Are you trying to do a fresh install? You need to delete all existing partitions and repartion and then install. Figure out if you want to run raid first cause that will have to be setup in the raid utility first and then install windows.
 

cpt.obvious

New Member
Yea, I'm trying to do that. But I keep getting this error message. "Windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid system volume"

After googling for an hour... I found someone had the same problem. Said, my computer baisiclly wants to start up from the USB device. And sure enough, I say my boot order was my printer which has a stick in there. So, I just pulled all my USB devices out. Now, I'm trying again. If this doesn't work. lol I'll need a nother rockstar.

No, I do not want to run RAID. btw.
 

cpt.obvious

New Member
Hey, look at that. No error message. Well, not that one anyways. Now I get, "Windows is unable to find a system that meets its criteria for the installation"
 

cpt.obvious

New Member
FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!! After sitting on my laptop for hours trying to find an answer. I have figured it out. For future purposes for people, here is how I did it. Ok, I was going from half installed RAID to not wanting my drives in RAID 0. So here is what I did, I tried to install Vista on one of my hard drives with a separate partition. That did not work, got the first error message (which you have to disable or disconnect all your USB drives). Once I did that then tried reinstalling, I got "Windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid system volume" To resolve this, I disconnected two out of three hard drives. Than retried, And to my suprise, It worked! Also, if YOU are having troubles, go here.. This is where I found the solution to my second problem.

http://help.lockergnome.com/vista/Windows-unable-find-system-volume--ftopict7572.html

It's a forum so be prepared to read.
 
Top