Windows Vista "Could not reinitialize the deployment engine"

So my hard drive croaked. (Fortunately, while it was in hospice I was able to back everything up.) I got a new hard drive - a Seagate Desktop HDD - and installed it.

In trying to reinstall Vista from the CD, however, I get an error message: "Windows Setup could not reinitialize the deployment engine. To install Windows, restart the installation." That's as far as I can get. This occurs after I select the drive; Windows will get to "Copying Windows files - 0% ", appear to begin, and then cancel with that error message.

I have attempted to use the "Format" option under "Drive options (advanced)" during the setup but the only thing that will happen is that the cursor will hourglass for a second. I also attempted to format by choosing "repair" instead of a new installation, following along to the command prompt, and typing "format c: ". This is ongoing, but tremendously slow. It's at 4% completion now, after starting about eight minutes ago. (It's a 2-TB drive.) But I was curious to see if any suggestions popped up before it finished doing this.

I could possibly attempt to reinstall the old hard drive as it still may have a little useful life left, if a solution requires it.

Does anyone know why Vista seems to reject being installed on this new drive? Is it necessary to simply complete the formatting process? The manual didn't seem to suggest it would be necessary and the drive came with no support CD.

 

Well, letting Vista do its thing was just what I did at first. Just plug and play, essentially. Only after a few failed efforts did I try any formatting. Haven't attempted any partitioning yet; when I get home this afternoon I'll try the suggestion at the above link.

Could there be some kind of compatibility issue? I wouldn't think so, although when I googled the error one result was a Microsoft support center thread, which included a link to the "Vista compatibility center" to see if there was such an issue. That link is dead, though - just a suggestion to go buy Windows 7.

Could I have misdiagnosed the original problem and have another hardware issue somewhere else? I swapped out the SATA cable although that seemed unnecessary, and checked everything else for tightness and what not.

 

This link worked. I have no idea why but it did. Thanks! I will mark this solved.

 

Been working on that. Some of them (video card driver for example) required Vista to get itself up-to-date first so it's been a tedious process.