cant install vista

[danno123]

The games I play tend to run better on vista than 7. I've partitioned off 200gb hoping to dual boot. When I attempt to install vista it cant "see" the hard drive, therefore no installation.

It's a purchased copy of vista ultimate service pack 1 with serial key

dell inspiron 17r special edition laptop 8gb ram i7 processor


thanks

 

[KSoD]

Do you have ACHI on or IDE mode within the BIOS? Is the drive recognized within the BIOS? Is it that it cant see the hard drive at all or just the partition you created? If it is only the partition, you have to format it to NTFS.

 

[danno123]

In BIOS the hard drive has the options of ATA, AHCI, and Intel Smart Response Technology - currently set at Intel Smart Response Technology. This is under the SATA Operation menu in the advanced menu (assuming thats where I should be looking).

BIOS recognizes the 1000gb hard disk.

When attempting to install Vista no drives are recognized. I wouldnt even be able to install overtop of Windows 7 if I wanted to.

The new 200gb partition is NTFS.