"Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteriafor installing"

[mannuraama]

I bought a new Dell Optiplex 755 that came with XP pre-installed. Now I want to install Windows Vista on the same. But as now a day’s all new systems comes with several unwanted programs and all, I just wiped out the existing partitions. I started the vista setup, it copied files, and reaches fine until the screen where we need to select the partition to install the OS.

But on that screen when I select the one and only available partition, I get the following error message "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installing."

I don’t have any idea what is the cause of this problem. Do anyone of you have? Please suggest something.

[RaAbi]

I am well aware of this problem as I had it couple of months ago while installing Vista on my laptop. There is nothing to worry about the same buddy. You just need to delete that partition using Advance option of the Vista installer, create a new partition for whatever size you want and format it right there. Then select the partition and continue the installation. That’s it.

[SMichael]

Do you have any USB or external drives attached with your computer? If yes, you should always remove all these stuffs during windows installation. Along with this you should also disable USB legacy drives option from your BIOS if it supports booting or using USB legacy drives.