Vista reinstall problems with disks C and D

**hanmar** · 14-07-2009

Hi

I've got a Dell XPS 420 with Vista (as preinstalled using RAID). I've had to recently reinstall windows vista due to an unexplained boot failure (ie. vista did not boot beyond BIOS) After doing this with the windows vista cd dell gave me, the system now reads the system like a dual boot. it gives me the option to boot "Microsoft windows vista" and "windows vista". i admit i didn't read the install instructions that carefully but thought that reinstall would be as simple as XP.

the drive was originally partitioned to have a 'recovery' drive C (for the OS) and a data drive D (bulk of data, videos, music, pictures etc) which I think is a standard vista set up. when I boot into "Microsoft windows vista" (the new version I installed) I can see the d drive but do not have permission to view the contents. Even after trying to change permissions I get a couple of errors notably with booting and I think a master disk record (sorry I can't remember these verbatim) error while vista is trying to change the permissions on this drive. So I still cant have access to the data on that drive.

meanwhile the small OS partition (I must have created accidentally instead of installing to the original location as I indented) is full and can't accept any more data (just with the standard vista install). when I try to boot the original copy of windows vista it goes through the motions and then stops on a black screen with the cursor. so I can move that about a black screen so can't attempt data recovery from here.

Its got to the point where I don't mind loosing the data on the drive (ideally id keep it tho) but would just like to get vista restored as it came. could someone please help?

nitesh mehta · 15-07-2009

At the time of reinstalling windows you probably deleted the other partition and created another one and therefore you lost all the data on it and unfortunately i dont think that you can do something about that once you have deleted the partition and created another one.

**hanmar** · 16-07-2009

thanks for the reply - I reinstalled last night and after some messing about got the set up again (without the data). Ended up having to install the OS onto the d type partition (after deleting the excess partitions with Vista installation cd) because vista installation cd wouldn't let me install directly to the partition - booting into windows, then formatting the c partition (in Vista) and reinstalling the OS to the drive....all because I wasn't careful about reinstallation!