[ITT] We spend the next few hours recovering my laptop.

the partition u made in linux might be weird, you could try removing any partitions in windows setup, re-create one and try to install again
 
Yeah I just did, same problem?

It was 450gb or whatever of unallocated space, so I made a new partition in Windows set-up and then formatted it.. same problem though about not being able to determine if it has a valid volume or whatever.

Any more ideas? Yours have been the most promising thus far. heh.
 
Oh, that happens all the time.

Go back to the first screen where it lets you click "Install Windows" or whatever. Bottom left there should be "Repair Windows". Click that, and then select "Command Prompt".

From there type "diskpart", then "sel disk 0" (or 1 or 2, however many drives you have) then type "clean".

You'll have to restart, but it will work.

It doesn't delete anything when it "cleans" so don't worry. It's kind of like "cleaning" your registry. Just fixes stuff.

EDIT: Oh wait I misread (although the above doesn't hurt). A lot of computers you have to set to IDE or whatever (AHCI won't work on some laptops/hard drives). I dunno if you've tried that yet, gonna read back some lol.
 
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Oh, that happens all the time.

Go back to the first screen where it lets you click "Install Windows" or whatever. Bottom left there should be "Repair Windows". Click that, and then select "Command Prompt".

From there type "diskpart", then "sel disk 0" (or 1 or 2, however many drives you have) then type "clean".

You'll have to restart, but it will work.

It doesn't delete anything when it "cleans" so don't worry. It's kind of like "cleaning" your registry. Just fixes stuff.

Neg, there's no option for repairing or any of that at all. Just goes straight into install. Likely because there's no Windows on this machine to speak of?
 
I only have ATA, RAID and AHCI.

I just changed the AHCI setting from Legacy to Native.
ATA and IDE are the same (for your intents and purposes).

No repair? It should look like this (even if you're just booting off the disk):

setup-option.jpg


"Repair your computer"
 
nah it looks like an older Vista install without the whole menu thing, just straight into language --> license --> select drive

I'll try ATA next
 
fffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

ATA gives me the same error message

this is what my install looks like btw:

4jtlkk.jpg
 
Nope, asks me if I want to cancel, and blah blah, and then restarts the computer

Even if I had the other version of Vista I don't know how it would work, there's literally nothing on these hard drives to repair, I have formatted them super clean and about 10 times with ten different settings

My next idea is to try and run some sort of disk-fix utility, but I would have to do it in Ubuntu, and I have no idea how to install programs on Ubuntu or even what programs there are for it. Although it seems silly that their super powerful built-in ones couldn't somehow do the job.
 
So it doesn't even see this newly created partition in Ubuntu or whatever.

As far as Windows is concerned there's a 450gb HDD with a new partition on it, one which it can't determine a valid volume for, as far as Ubuntu is concerned, there's, uh, exactly what I had before?

ffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu this is needlessly complicated

where are TW's super computer experts who can just look at like four pixels of a person's screen and instantly determine exactly what's wrong with their entire system from top to bottom hardware to software and also their home address and social security number?
 
Dude, honestly... without knowing and seeing exactly what you did to the drives in Linux, we're all basically taking shots in the dark here. I don't mean to chastise you, but you've created a situation where we can't help you because we're not sitting in front of the machine and no one including you knows what the hell you did to it.

:(
 
Dude, honestly... without knowing and seeing exactly what you did to the drives in Linux, we're all basically taking shots in the dark here. I don't mean to chastise you, but you've created a situation where we can't help you because we're not sitting in front of the machine and no one including you knows what the hell you did to it.

:(

Iunno dude, I just formatted the drives in Ubuntu and made NTFS partitions on them, or somehow tried. Most of the time it just gave me "Sorry can't do that" error messages. Then I loaded up the Vista install and noticed everything went to shit.

I don't understand how formatting them a few times could've made such a big fuckery that nobody here is capable of guessing what's gone wrong with them? Especially with pictures of everything.
 
How old is this Alienware? When did you buy it?

Got it like 2 years and ~3 weeks ago.

You could try your manufacturer's utility for the HDD's below

Yeah but I have no idea how I would run that program, unless I could somehow do it in Ubuntu? It only lists being available for windows and mac and not being able to put windows on this machine is the problem in the first place.
 
Iunno dude, I just formatted the drives in Ubuntu and made NTFS partitions on them, or somehow tried. Most of the time it just gave me "Sorry can't do that" error messages. Then I loaded up the Vista install and noticed everything went to shit.

I don't understand how formatting them a few times could've made such a big fuckery that nobody here is capable of guessing what's gone wrong with them? Especially with pictures of everything.

Ubuntu formats them differently than the Windows installer, even though they both say "NTFS". That's oversimplifying it, but you get the idea.

It doesn't help that you don't appear to have any authentic Windows CDs or recovery discs. There are some tools on the Vista install disc that could probably get you out of this mess, but you're trying to install it from a USB thumb drive(????).
 
The device should have a 7-digit alphanumeric Service Tag on a sticker in a conspicuous place. Find it and PM me the number.

Negative. That was the first thing I looked for like 8 hours ago.

no tag so to speak of. so it's either been inadvertently scratched off or was the other blackened half of a small tag I found on it that was completely unreadable.
 
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