It sounds like you have 3 partitions now on the hard drive. Probably the easiest step now would be to boot from the Vista CD and delete all of the partitions. After you delete all partitions, you should be able to install Vista to the hard drive which will now be just one large partition. That should do the trick. Just be sure not to cut power to the system ( you do have the system connected to an AC power source and not running on battery power right?).

 

JO

I've started reinstallation from the Dell Vista CD and, using advanced options, formatted the C drive and then proceeded to installl Vista to the formatted drive.  It quickly ran through the first few bits but now appears stuck (again) on Completing Installation.  I still have 3 dots moving after the words 'Completing Installation' but the yellow bar at the bottom of the page hasn't moved in ages.  How long should I give it to complete the installation?

 

cheers

It can take a while but if you are looking at anything over 2 hours (should be less) than something is wrong. I assume that you deleted all of the partitions and then created a new partition which would be the total size of the hard drive. Then formatted and installed clean? There isn't any trick to it unless the hard drive itself has a problem.

 

JO

When the power cut during the install that could have caused a hardware problem. Do you have the Dell diagnostic disc? I believe that they still ship it and if so then you could boot with that disc and see if all of the hardware is OK. This is a long shot but enter the setup screen when you start the system (F2) and reset the BIOS settings to default. The power problem could have changed something in the settings.

 

JO

2 hours and still completing installation...surely that's not right?

Just read your reply after I started to reinstall Vista.  I'll try your suggestion after not getting anywhere again.

 

Cheers