Cannot install vista in my laptop

Hi,
I am trying to upgrade my laptop from Windows XP to Windows Vista. The problem here is that when I run the DVD of Windows Vista from my DVD drive the installation menu does not appear. I had set the DVD drive as a primary boot device. The light blinks at the time of restart by then after a moment Windows XP comes up. My laptop has Sony AD 7640A DVD drive. Does it needs a drive update. Where can I download the same. What are the other ways to install vista. I has heard about USB boot but never done this. Any suggestion really appreciated.

The problem can be with your hardware. Right click on My Computer and select properties. Then go to Hardware Tab and click on Device Manager. Now right click on the DVD drive and uninstall it. Restart your system. Windows will find suitable driver for it. Then insert vista disc and wait for the menu. You can see a Vista menu. Click on install vista. It will ask for upgrade or complete install. Don't choose upgrade. The other option will be fine. Windows XP will reboot and you can now see the Vista Menu. If still you get errors or the installation is halted then you will need to replace your optical drive.

I think you have a bad hardware. This happens when the disc drives reads for a moment and then stops. This is mainly due to hardware failure. You will need to upgrade the firmware. The firmware can only be found at the official site. Here is a simple solution. Do this copy all the content of Vista DVD in a different drive. Lets take for example C is your primary partition in which you have windows xp. Then copy it in D drive. Format it by right clicking on it and copy the entire DVD in the D drive. Now double click on setup.exe file which will show a Vista installation. Click on install vista. The system will reboot and you can see the installation begins.

Creating a bootable USB drive is a better option for those who does not have a DVD drive or the hardware is damaged. Now do this. Insert a 4 GB usb drive and format it. You can do this by right clicking on the drive in My Computer and selecting Format. Choose the file type as FAT32. Then go to Start > Run > Type cmd.exe. Press enter and in the command prompt give the following command one by one.

• diskpart
• select disk (USB Drive)
• clean
• create partition primary
• select partition (USB Drive)
• active
• format fs=fat32
• assign
• exit

Then type the command xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ to copy the content of Vista DVD in the USB drive. Now set up your BIOS to boot from USB or Press TAB at the time of restart. You see four option select USB.