[aka Brett]

You had vista installed before correct?
Vista will run with 512 of ram.....very slowly..it will install though

Vista wont have a problem recognizing a drive made the last few years

[bama476]

I just dont know what else to do. I just thought of something. If i put in a new drive, and it is blank, will the dell reinstallation disk work on the new drive if Vista was never on this drive?

[aka Brett]

Yes it will

[bama476]

could it be a drive compatibility problem ?

[aka Brett]

do you have access to other disks to see if they will work..as this will rule out an actually hardware problem...if you dont have another OS at hand you can follow this link and install this for testing purposes,,its a free full fledged os

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

[bama476]

Once I get this downloaded and burned to a CD, do I just install it like a new version of a OS ? What do I do with it once it is installed ?

[aka Brett]

yes..just like installing any other os....it different that putting on vista does to partition setups...but on a bare drive just take all the defaults..

Basically what we are doing is checking your hardware to make sure there is proper communication between the motherboard hard drive etc.

Vista should be picking up your new drive,,but isnt...now if you cant install Ubuntu either,then we know we have a hardware related problem
Also it willgive you a chance to check it out..it can be run as a live cd as well..and may come in handy someday..IMO everyone should have a copy in their tool box

[bama476]

I am having a terrible time getting the ubuntu to burn to a CD. Evertime I try to burn it the burn fails. Is there a certain type of CD I need to use ? Also, I have noticed that Vista is on the hard drive, but, when the system trys to boot, the drive spins and looks like it is loading but then just stops and the screen goes blank and drive stops. I booted using the internal NIC just for grins and got an xpe-e61 error stating check media cable. What does this mean ?

[aka Brett]

Sometimes the re writeables tend to fail more
Are you burning as a cd image iso etc..not just copy

Also see if you can reduce your write speed...there is alot less chance of errors this way

[aka Brett]

also is the name of your downloaded image named the following..to make sure we have the correct download

ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso