Can't Install XP/Vista, weird error.. what do i do!?[reward]

Hey guys,

really need help with my laptop, is fairly new and it looks like i've ****ed something up, if anybody can help I will be much appreciated and if you want ill send $5 to your paypal.

Anyway to the point:
I had a free copy of Windows Vista Business which my father had spare copies because he got some pack with 10 for his business or something, i installed it and it was running fine and all was well. However i rescently purchased a 22" widescreen which i often hook my laptop on to, and i thought, if I had media center this would be totatally awesome, and Dad agreed so he went out and bought the full thing, So i put the disc in, did a full install (instead of upgrade) and once it got to 90% of copying files i would get an error.. i can't remember what the error was, but i googled it and got lots of results from beta 2 and they were all different as to what the problem was...

Anyway i tried booting from the disc instead of running from windows this time i got to vertyfying and got an error, same one i think. So anyway, i tried getting back into vista and i simply couldn't, it wasn't an option only XP (i was dual booting) so i tried opening XP and i couldn't cause the boot ini file was on my vista drive which for some reason wasn't working.

Anyway, i tried many times to install vista, and was the same result, so i tried ubuntu, i combined the partition into single, and tried formatting to NTFS, i think that worked, but there seems to be 60mb still on there.

I tried XP, it loads alot of files then blue screen of death:
STOP: 0x0000007E (0xc0000005, 0xf748e0bf, 0xf78da208, 0xf78d9f08) pci.sys - Address f748e0bf base at f7487000

ahh what can i do?! I think i need a boot disc that will properrly format my disc to NTFS so this **** stops! thanks heaps

note: my laptop is Dell D620 - i have no recovery cds alas

 

ur specs show that u have sata drive, might want to look into how to re.install xp on a sata drive, and then re.install vista afterwrad

cheers ...

 

XP can't install on a SATA drive?

Anybody have any other ideas? I think it still needs to be properly formatted, are there any boot disks that let you do this?

thanks!

 

XP can install to sata drives. If you're getting errors before the install begins, that would hint HD failure. If you're getting errors in the middle of install, i would say try a new disc. If you're running default settings, and neither of those 2 apply, you have some sort of hardware failure. Windows doesn't refuse to install short of a bad disc/hardware failure. Now send me my $5

 

I did end up getting a copy of OEM XP PRO. And then just did a quick format then installed XP. All is working fine. Not gonna install vista for a while.. lol