Windows Vista Multiple Vista OS on 2 Drives after clean install

Hi , I have a Dell Inspiron 1420 and recently had to reinstall vista home basic due to some driver errors that would not allow me to start up, the install went fine, but when I started up it gave me 2 options of windows vista to choose from. I chose the first and it started fine although I got a low disk space prompt which i found very strange because this was a clean install, I went to disk manegment and noticed I had 78 MB for the EISA configuration(which I think is normal), 10.00 GB NTFS for the C: drive, 52.98 GB NTFS for the D: drive, 36.47 GB of unallocated space and 12.27 GB of free space.
There is obviously a problem, seems I have Vista installed on both my C: and D: drives , I figured I might be able to delete the volumes and possibly just reinstall the OS again. but the option to delete the volume is faded out and cannot be done, any help with this would be greatly aprriciated.

 

I think I have been there , that is, installing Windows on two drives when trying to install it on one.

10 GB, I suspect, is far too small for Vista (I used to have Win 95 on 500MB ). My Vista partition is a total of 50GB and has used 11GB with very sparse programs installed. I have a 120GB D: drive (I install programs onto my D: drive) and 170GB of free space on my HDD.

If you have two installs of Windows and the option to delete the one of them is greyed out, you are probably booted into that install.

If you have not gone very far with the installation, I suggest you start all over again. If you want to install Vista to the C: drive, I would recommend giving it at least 50GB. That means repartitioning.

I don't remember exactly, but I thought my initial install of Vista was around 4GB. If you have 4GB of RAM it may want to have a 6GB "pagefile ".

So...
If you want to install Vista onto the C: drive, I think you will need to repartition and give it plenty of space. The Used Space will grow as you install more programs because they need to put files into the folder Program Files (Edit: even if they are installed to another drive). Temporary Internet Files will grow if you don't limit them. The Temp folder(s) will grow if you let them.

If you want to install Vista onto C:, I think you will need to give it more space.

Matt

 

I found the same problem with Win XP. The problem is, for some unknown reason, IF you have two physical drives, you must disconnect the "extra" drive during the install of Windows. After the install, you can hook it back up and everything is fine. I believe it is an error in their install process, that most people don't have to worry about, cause most people only have one physical drive.
Take care and enjoy,
Chuck

 

suspect we're talking about one HDD with 2 partitions here, so nothing to desconnect. Agree with Matt Vista needs much more than 10 GB; I find that between 30-40 is enough if one is religious about putting non-OS software on d: etc. and i like the smaller size for backup images with acronis.

 

Should have looked before I opened my mouth. This is a LapTop and only has one drive. However, according to the specs it comes with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition and a 160GB hard drive. I really can't see Dell providing a partitioned drive ... unless ... the first partition is a recovery partition like so many other manufactures have provided. This is accessed, at least by HP, via F10 at boot-up or by some special control panel options. Therefore if the owner has partitioned it himself before loading the OS you may run into the same problem I mentioned before. Only in this case, instead of disconnecting the second drive you just reduce the drive to one partition..?.?

Specs found at: http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-1420/4507-3121_7-32486109.html?tag=mncol;psum