error while installing Vista on Latitude e6500

I am not sure why you are booting into XP to do a Vista install.

You should have the Vista DVD in the DVD drive. Boot. F12 to select booting from the DVD.

Vista should install on that machine with no problem, update the system to the latest BIOS revision within Windows XP and try installation again.

You did not read my post well. I did what you suggest before installing XP, and it failed.

I have run Dells driver update process several times, and believe I have the latest BIOS revision already. But how can I verify that?

Thanks, -Jeff

Natakuc4,

I went into the BIOS setup and saw I had version A12. I do not know why Dell's driver update process did not flag this. I looked at the complete list of drivers and found BIOS version A29 and installed it. That fixed a video driver issue I had. However, when I tried to install Vista it again gave the same error as I reported before.

So I am still stuck with XP. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

-Jeff

Anyone,

I found on another forum that my problem may be caused by the new HDD I installed, which may have advanced capabilities not supported by my original Vista installer. I was pointed to a Microsoft KB article concerning this situation, and some instructions on how to get around it if one is installeing Win7. Can anyone confirm that the Latitude laptop e6500 would have this problem with Vista?

Thanks

Sorry for taking a while to get back to you.

I was going to suggest that this might be an advanced format hard drive, this can generally still be used if you load a SATA driver during the Windows setup.

You should load the F6Flpy-x86 (for 32 bit) or F6Flpy-x64 (for 64 bit) Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers. They are on the Dell ftp website but best to load them directly from Intel as they will be more up to date versions more likely to suit your drive:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3449&DwnldID=23060&keyword=intel+rapid+storage+technology&lang=eng 

See Step 6 and Step 8 of Windows Reinstallation Guide/A Clean Install of Windows Vista for more details.

A29 is the latest BIOS version.

Natakuc4,

I did some more research, and found several Dell and MS KB articles, including the one you mention for Vista reinstall. I now have the A29 BIOS installed, and I also downloaded the "pre-install" Intel RST 9.6 from the Dell site. I still have some doubts, though. Some of the KB articles list Vista and XP as being non-advanced-format-aware, whereas Vista SP1 and Win7 & Win7-Sp1 are AF-aware. This seems to mean, from other things I have read, that the RST drivers need to be "pre-installed", that is, before Step 6 in the article you cite. They need to be installed during Step 3, the OS install itself. Another article on re-installing Win7 indicates that there is a step in the install process where one can insert the RST drivers. However, nowhere can I find that Vista (which is what I have - I do not have Vista SP1) supports such intervention during the OS install.

I hope I was clear above. Do you know how I would be able to force Vista "original" 32-bit to allow the "pre-install" of the RST driver? Dell's KB article had me put the driveron a USB stick, but itare useless if I cannot figure out how to install itat the right point. One idea I saw was to create a custom install disk by combining the Vista, Vista SP1, and RST. In my case I think that would require me to first install Vista original and update it to SP1, which I cannot do of course. A Catch-22 (circular reasoning).

I also thought about purchasing a copy of Win7, possibly from Dell, which might be able to get around this problem easier.

Any other thought? Thanks,

-Jeff