yamibone Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 hi guys nice forum.Long story short = computer owned by virus, needs fresh clean install. I don't have vista disks but have an image of the vista installation saved on an external hard drive. I also burned the image to DVD but my DVD player/reader is highly unreliable and often fails to read disks. My only option is the external HD.Can you install vista from an external hard drive? If so how? I have backed up all my files on the HD. The virus made my system unstable so its unable to shutdown or install/uninstall most applications. I have a Dell recovery partition but it fails to trigger (Ctrl+F11 doesn't work). So this is my only option I think.. anyone help?Computer specs : Vostro 1700C2D T7500 Processor 2.2GHz,Windows Vista® Business17.0" Widescreen WUXGA TFT Display2.0 megapixel webcam2048MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT8X DVD+/-RW DrivePrimary 9-cell Battery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ner Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 (edited) try...boot into cd:bootrec /fixmbrbootrec /fixbootOr did you already try that?as for the image then It all depends on what type of image you have.. Can you provide the details.... and see this: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/glo...toggle=&dl= Edited May 28, 2009 by ner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinStacey.x Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 If you could somehow unpack the image to an \i386 folder then you will be able to run winnt.exe from DOS.How new is that computer? Given the optical drive is knackered and so is the OS it might be time to milk that warranty for what it's worth. It is a Dell afterall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 He has Vista, not XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ner Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 try this too...I found the Factory.wim file on the recovery partition and want to upgrade/replace the WIM file with a new (32 bit OS /w applications) image.I have extracted the image ("imageX.exe /extract d:dell\image\Factory.wim 1 e:\Factory.wim") and I am currently trying to mount the image using "imageX.exe /mount e:\Factory.wim 1 e:\image" but to no avail.All I get is:----------------ImageX Tool for WindowsCopyright © Microsoft Corp. 1981-2005. All rights reserved.Mounting: [E:\image\newfile.wim, 1] ->[E:\tmp]Error mounting image:The system cannot find the file specified.----------------I am running the cmd as Administrator.SOLVED mounting problem.:I forgot to install the "wimfltr.inf" found in the same folder as the imageX.exe file.Now I can see the image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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