"Windows is unable to find a system volume..."

windows unable find system volume

"Windows is unable to find a system volume..."

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

Have you tried extracting the contents of the ISO to a directory and run setup from the directory? -- Andre Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta "Grope For Luna" <Grope For Luna@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

"Andre Da Costa [Extended64]" wrote:

Have you tried extracting the contents of the ISO to a directory and run setup from the directory?

I tried it but, predictably, no go.
I tried to install the 5308 beta and it gave me the same result, so it's something to do with the particular hardware configuration I have.

I'm having the same issue. Trying to install on an 80gb hard drive that has been freshly formatted. I set the partition and formatted the drive in vista and it wont let me install on this drive.

"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

I am having similar issues. I am getting the same error:
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.
I have a 100GB Drive that I have partitioned using Partition Commander, which is correctly recognized by the installer:
Disk 0 Partition 1 10.0GB 1.8GB Primary Disk 0 Partition 2 10.0GB 0.0MB Primary Disk 0 Partition 3 15.0GB 14.9GB Primary Disk 0 Partition 4 2.0GB 0.0MB Logical Disk 0 Partition 5 DATA 56.4GB 46.8GB Logical
Disk 0 Partition 1 is NTFS on which I already have Windows XP Pro installed. Disk 0 Partition 2 is Linux partition on which I have a Linux OS installed. Disk 0 Partition 3 is a NTFS 15GB partition on which I want to install Vista Beta2. Disk 0 Partition 4 is Linux Swap partition Disk 0 Partition 5 is a FAT-32 partition for data common to all OSes.
I formatted the Disk 0 Partition 3 with Vista Installer. I can see that that partition is selected automatically by Vista Installer and the Next button is highlighted. When I click on Next button I get the
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.
Osho
"AmdEmAll" wrote:

I'm having the same issue. Trying to install on an 80gb hard drive that has been freshly formatted. I set the partition and formatted the drive in vista and it wont let me install on this drive.

"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

"AmdEmAll" wrote:

I'm having the same issue. Trying to install on an 80gb hard drive that has been freshly formatted. I set the partition and formatted the drive in vista and it wont let me install on this drive.

"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

I am having the same issue as well. Has anyone found a solution?

"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.

I too was having this problem. I was using a WD 30GB drive. I tried it fresh and pre-partitioned using Partition Magic & the Vista Installer. The 30GB drive was my primary IDE master with a slave attached. But one curious thing is the Vista installer kept offering to use the primary slave drive instead.
Just now I changed the drive config by disconnecting the primary slave and changing the drive jumper on the 30GB drive to 'only' drive.
I didn't get the system volume error and Vista is happily installing as I type this.
What does it all mean? I don't have a clue! RichB

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:03:01 -0700, Grope For Luna <Grope For Luna@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary partition.)

"andy" wrote:

Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary partition.)

WD 80GB IDE Drive Primary Master
C: 15GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Active primary partition with x64) 9GB free D: 60GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Primary partition for programs) 30GB free

Similar issue here. I have XPpro set up on my RAID-0 configuration but also have a seperate 150GB Raptor which I use for progs and games. I partitioned that in half, so I have a clean 75gb partition for the window Vista beta. Now, my WinXP-Pro if 32 bit, and I am trying to install Vista Beta2 64 on the clean partition I made. I don't think there should have been any issue. Aside from the fact it was also giving me errors whe I downloaded the ISO....But that is another issue.
Any ideas anyone>? I have done what other have suggested, as far as disconnecting everything but mouse and keyboard. Still get the same system volume error. -- AMDFX57 2xWD200 RAID-0(XP Pro) 150 GB Raptor(Games and Vista*hopefully*) XFI-ExtremeMusic 2xBFG7800GTX256 SLI A8n32 Deluxe Nforce X16 2405FPW digital 1920*1200
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

I am having similar issues. I am getting the same error:
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.
I have a 100GB Drive that I have partitioned using Partition Commander, which is correctly recognized by the installer:
Disk 0 Partition 1 10.0GB 1.8GB Primary Disk 0 Partition 2 10.0GB 0.0MB Primary Disk 0 Partition 3 15.0GB 14.9GB Primary Disk 0 Partition 4 2.0GB 0.0MB Logical Disk 0 Partition 5 DATA 56.4GB 46.8GB Logical
Disk 0 Partition 1 is NTFS on which I already have Windows XP Pro installed. Disk 0 Partition 2 is Linux partition on which I have a Linux OS installed. Disk 0 Partition 3 is a NTFS 15GB partition on which I want to install Vista Beta2. Disk 0 Partition 4 is Linux Swap partition Disk 0 Partition 5 is a FAT-32 partition for data common to all OSes.
I formatted the Disk 0 Partition 3 with Vista Installer. I can see that that partition is selected automatically by Vista Installer and the Next button is highlighted. When I click on Next button I get the
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.
Osho

I finally ripped my computer apart ( I have it up on the beams and taking it down is a major hassle so this was a last resort) and disabled some of the drives and I managed to get it installed. It wouldn't work with my WD 80GB primary drive, so I swapped my old Maxtor 40GB backup drive and that worked. If I want to run vista, I press F11 while booting and choose the backup drive or I can set it as the default drive in bios.
"Grope For Luna" wrote in message

"andy" wrote: Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary partition.)
WD 80GB IDE Drive Primary Master
C: 15GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Active primary partition with x64) 9GB free D: 60GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Primary partition for programs) 30GB free

I finally ripped my computer apart ( I have it up on the beams and taking it down is a major hassle so this was a last resort) and disabled some of the drives and I managed to get it installed. It wouldn't work with my WD 80GB primary drive, so I swapped my old Maxtor 40GB backup drive and that worked. If I want to run vista, I F11 while booting and choose the backup drive or I can set it as the default drive in bios.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

I have been having the same problem with one MAJOR difference. I ran through the install perfectly. Vista was installing the files and then decompressing them. It takes time so I walked away from the screen. When I came back it was at the same screen as the first install. Keyboard, US, etc. It had rebooted at one point and then went stupid. This is an older 60 gig drive that I formatted with the Vista installer. I'm thinking it's drive related but Bios looked ok and I'm trying a few things. I can't recall how I have the drive setup. IDE master, primary/secondary. I was just throwing things together. Will check back when I have an answer.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

Check your Bios and make sure your drive shows up as primary. And/or check your jumpers on your drive. Those running the raid....??? Driver issue?
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

Check your Bios and make sure your drive shows up as primary. And/or check your jumpers on your drive. Those running the raid....??? Driver issue?
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

I may have found a solution. I've been having a lot of trouble getting Vista installed myself. I tried numerous attempts to bypass the error ("Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.") with no success. However, after almost destroying my computer keyboard out of rage, I stumbled upon a solution, maybe out of dumb luck. Vista finally installed. I'll list exactly what I did to make it install, but because I was so frustrated at the time of the solution, and I'm too afraid to try to reproduce this process, I can't guarantee this will solve everyone's problem.
I booted off of the installation DVD, my monitor displayed a grey loading bar and a text label: “Windows is loading files…” While this bar was being shown I held down F8, ignoring the system clicking sounds. When the bar reached 100% completion, with F8 still held down, I was prompted with a menu much like the extended boot menu of a windows OS (included safe mode and such options). I let go of F8 and chose the option near the bottom labeled "Debugging Mode." From there I continued the installation as normal, selected the partition I wanted, clicked next, and, like magic, it worked.
If this is a solution, my guess is that the debug kernel disables some safety flag on this part of the instillation. So, if this works for you, tell me. If it doesn’t, I may try to retrace my steps to figure out if I did anything in addition to this to force Vista to install.
Hope this helps, Jesse.

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

No it does not work. I tried your solution and various others I thought of myself, but still
I can't install the windows vista !!!
anyone DO SMTH !!!!
"thisRhythm" wrote:

I may have found a solution. I've been having a lot of trouble getting Vista installed myself. I tried numerous attempts to bypass the error ("Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.") with no success. However, after almost destroying my computer keyboard out of rage, I stumbled upon a solution, maybe out of dumb luck. Vista finally installed. I'll list exactly what I did to make it install, but because I was so frustrated at the time of the solution, and I'm too afraid to try to reproduce this process, I can't guarantee this will solve everyone's problem.
I booted off of the installation DVD, my monitor displayed a grey loading bar and a text label: “Windows is loading files…” While this bar was being shown I held down F8, ignoring the system clicking sounds. When the bar reached 100% completion, with F8 still held down, I was prompted with a menu much like the extended boot menu of a windows OS (included safe mode and such options). I let go of F8 and chose the option near the bottom labeled "Debugging Mode." From there I continued the installation as normal, selected the partition I wanted, clicked next, and, like magic, it worked.
If this is a solution, my guess is that the debug kernel disables some safety flag on this part of the instillation. So, if this works for you, tell me. If it doesn’t, I may try to retrace my steps to figure out if I did anything in addition to this to force Vista to install.
Hope this helps, Jesse.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

My client set partion that he want to install Vista as active partition. And it solved the problem.

My client set partition, that he want install Vista on, as active partition. It solve his probblem.

Frustrating, I know. Well, tonight I'll go see if anything else I did helped get it installed. Something did it for me, and it wasn't anything I did to my hardware, so I'll look into it.
"Tommmmmm" wrote:

No it does not work. I tried your solution and various others I thought of myself, but still
I can't install the windows vista !!!
anyone DO SMTH !!!!
"thisRhythm" wrote:
I may have found a solution. I've been having a lot of trouble getting Vista installed myself. I tried numerous attempts to bypass the error ("Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.") with no success. However, after almost destroying my computer keyboard out of rage, I stumbled upon a solution, maybe out of dumb luck. Vista finally installed. I'll list exactly what I did to make it install, but because I was so frustrated at the time of the solution, and I'm too afraid to try to reproduce this process, I can't guarantee this will solve everyone's problem.
I booted off of the installation DVD, my monitor displayed a grey loading bar and a text label: “Windows is loading files…” While this bar was being shown I held down F8, ignoring the system clicking sounds. When the bar reached 100% completion, with F8 still held down, I was prompted with a menu much like the extended boot menu of a windows OS (included safe mode and such options). I let go of F8 and chose the option near the bottom labeled "Debugging Mode." From there I continued the installation as normal, selected the partition I wanted, clicked next, and, like magic, it worked.
If this is a solution, my guess is that the debug kernel disables some safety flag on this part of the instillation. So, if this works for you, tell me. If it doesn’t, I may try to retrace my steps to figure out if I did anything in addition to this to force Vista to install.
Hope this helps, Jesse.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

i'm also having the same problem...with a minor complication. my two hard drives are partitioned thus:
disk 0 part 1 9.6GB 9.5GB primary disk 1 part 1 996.0 MB 0.0MB primary disk1 part 2 73.6GB 0.0MB primary
where disk0 is the drive i want to put vista on, disk1 part1 is a Linux swap partition, and disk1 part2 carries a Linux OS. disk0 part1 has been formatted by the vista installer; i'm not touching disk1, as it has all my important data. i tried stripping it down to just disk0, completely disconnecting disk1, but then i get no boot; it won't even boot to the dvd, so i can't install it without having disk1 attached and acting as master. any ideas?
-F
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I finally ripped my computer apart ( I have it up on the beams and taking it down is a major hassle so this was a last resort) and disabled some of the drives and I managed to get it installed. It wouldn't work with my WD 80GB primary drive, so I swapped my old Maxtor 40GB backup drive and that worked. If I want to run vista, I F11 while booting and choose the backup drive or I can set it as the default drive in bios.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

same problem, minor complication.
two drives;
disk0part1 9.6GB primary disk1part1 966MB primary disk1part2 73.6GB primary
disk0part1 is desired location for vista, disk1part1 is Linux swap, disk1part2 is Linux OS. complication: disk1 will boot w/out disk0, but disk0 will not boot w/out disk1 (which eliminates any possibilities of stripping down to just disk0).
Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, hard drives as above.
any ideas? -F

"Steve Z" wrote:

Similar issue here. I have XPpro set up on my RAID-0 configuration but also have a seperate 150GB Raptor which I use for progs and games. I partitioned that in half, so I have a clean 75gb partition for the window Vista beta. Now, my WinXP-Pro if 32 bit, and I am trying to install Vista Beta2 64 on the clean partition I made. I don't think there should have been any issue. Aside from the fact it was also giving me errors whe I downloaded the ISO....But that is another issue.
Any ideas anyone>? I have done what other have suggested, as far as disconnecting everything but mouse and keyboard. Still get the same system volume error. -- AMDFX57 2xWD200 RAID-0(XP Pro) 150 GB Raptor(Games and Vista*hopefully*) XFI-ExtremeMusic 2xBFG7800GTX256 SLI A8n32 Deluxe Nforce X16 2405FPW digital 1920*1200
"Osho" wrote:
I am having similar issues. I am getting the same error:
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.
I have a 100GB Drive that I have partitioned using Partition Commander, which is correctly recognized by the installer:
Disk 0 Partition 1 10.0GB 1.8GB Primary Disk 0 Partition 2 10.0GB 0.0MB Primary Disk 0 Partition 3 15.0GB 14.9GB Primary Disk 0 Partition 4 2.0GB 0.0MB Logical Disk 0 Partition 5 DATA 56.4GB 46.8GB Logical
Disk 0 Partition 1 is NTFS on which I already have Windows XP Pro installed. Disk 0 Partition 2 is Linux partition on which I have a Linux OS installed. Disk 0 Partition 3 is a NTFS 15GB partition on which I want to install Vista Beta2. Disk 0 Partition 4 is Linux Swap partition Disk 0 Partition 5 is a FAT-32 partition for data common to all OSes.
I formatted the Disk 0 Partition 3 with Vista Installer. I can see that that partition is selected automatically by Vista Installer and the Next button is highlighted. When I click on Next button I get the
Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.
Osho

disk0part1 9.6GB primary - How is this formatted? And for Vista a minimum partition of 15Gigs is required.
-- Jane, not plain ;) 64bit enabled ;) Batteries not included. Braincell on vacation ;) "Flyer" wrote in message

same problem, minor complication.
two drives;
disk0part1 9.6GB primary disk1part1 966MB primary disk1part2 73.6GB primary
disk0part1 is desired location for vista, disk1part1 is Linux swap, disk1part2 is Linux OS. complication: disk1 will boot w/out disk0, but disk0 will not boot w/out disk1 (which eliminates any possibilities of stripping down to just disk0).
Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, hard drives as above.
any ideas?
-F

guys, i guess i have found out the roots of the problem.
It's not anything todo with RAID ( as we can read on google ), because at least I have normal ATA harddisc without raid. And yet I have this problem.
At the beginning I have thought that my NTFS might be wrong (bad clasters size/etc) but even after formatting the partition WITH vista installation disc, the problem was still THERE. So the NTFS partition is correct.
Everyone of us have already partitioned harddrive. I have too (Linux). That's why it does not work. You say: what? why? how? The answer is simple: because Vista is even more user friendly, so it thinks that it's users will be dumb, so they don't have partitioned HD. Microsoft programmers didn't expect that we - users would like to install Vista on partitioned HD.
Solution? Remove all partitions. Make one NTFS partition. Install. As I said on the beginnning "this is a guess" - I won't remove my Gentoo, because it's too troublesome and LONG to install it once more. Anyone pls try this method and tell me if it works,
As for the end, I want to say one thing: You have an OS, you are distributing it for developers, smart people - yet, you distribute stable version. Yet you didn't make any test to check if it works. You are dumb then.
In place of "You" put an apropriate company's name.
"Flyer" wrote:

same problem, minor complication.
two drives;
disk0part1 9.6GB primary disk1part1 966MB primary disk1part2 73.6GB primary
disk0part1 is desired location for vista, disk1part1 is Linux swap, disk1part2 is Linux OS. complication: disk1 will boot w/out disk0, but disk0 will not boot w/out disk1 (which eliminates any possibilities of stripping down to just disk0).
Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, hard drives as above.
any ideas?
-F

Yes, well Microsoft is Microsoft, and their mindset is the ultimite antithesis of the thought process of Linux users. However, even though I would love to Microsoft bash right now, I myself got Vista installed on my forth primary partition with a Linux root, Linux swap and Linux boot on my third, second, and first consecutively. I'm tied up with getting Vista to like my wireless network at the moment, but I'll continue to look into why the install worked for me after I had so much trouble before.
"Tommmmmm" wrote:

guys, i guess i have found out the roots of the problem.
It's not anything todo with RAID ( as we can read on google ), because at least I have normal ATA harddisc without raid. And yet I have this problem.
At the beginning I have thought that my NTFS might be wrong (bad clasters size/etc) but even after formatting the partition WITH vista installation disc, the problem was still THERE. So the NTFS partition is correct.
Everyone of us have already partitioned harddrive. I have too (Linux). That's why it does not work. You say: what? why? how? The answer is simple: because Vista is even more user friendly, so it thinks that it's users will be dumb, so they don't have partitioned HD. Microsoft programmers didn't expect that we - users would like to install Vista on partitioned HD.
Solution? Remove all partitions. Make one NTFS partition. Install. As I said on the beginnning "this is a guess" - I won't remove my Gentoo, because it's too troublesome and LONG to install it once more. Anyone pls try this method and tell me if it works,
As for the end, I want to say one thing: You have an OS, you are distributing it for developers, smart people - yet, you distribute stable version. Yet you didn't make any test to check if it works. You are dumb then.
In place of "You" put an apropriate company's name.
"Flyer" wrote:
same problem, minor complication.
two drives;
disk0part1 9.6GB primary disk1part1 966MB primary disk1part2 73.6GB primary
disk0part1 is desired location for vista, disk1part1 is Linux swap, disk1part2 is Linux OS. complication: disk1 will boot w/out disk0, but disk0 will not boot w/out disk1 (which eliminates any possibilities of stripping down to just disk0).
Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, hard drives as above.
any ideas?
-F

anyone know any other source of help?
i was googling 10 hours but no result

same problem, minor complication.
two drives;
disk0part1 9.6GB primary disk1part1 966MB primary disk1part2 73.6GB primary
disk0part1 is desired location for vista, disk1part1 is Linux swap, disk1part2 is Linux OS. complication: disk1 will boot w/out disk0, but disk0 will not boot (even to dvd) w/out disk1 (which eliminates any possibilities of stripping down to just disk0).
Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, hard drives as above.
any ideas?
-F

the Drive is too Small need 40gigs of room to install Vista "Flyer" wrote in message

same problem, minor complication.
two drives;
disk0part1 9.6GB primary disk1part1 966MB primary disk1part2 73.6GB primary
disk0part1 is desired location for vista, disk1part1 is Linux swap, disk1part2 is Linux OS. complication: disk1 will boot w/out disk0, but disk0 will not boot (even to dvd) w/out disk1 (which eliminates any possibilities of stripping down to just disk0).
Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, hard drives as above.
any ideas?
-F

I have a similar setup (Nforce 4 msi board) and have struggled for a few days with the same problem.
What i did was this: - Boot from Vista CD - Choose System RESTORE (instead of normal setup) - After a while you get to another menu and I chose Command Prompt - I used the DISKPART utlity to delete and create the partition i wanted to install vista to. ( If you dont know what you are doing diskpart can destroy your xp partition so be careful) dikskpart instructions: english: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/diskpart.mspx?mfr=true spanish: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/es/library/ServerHelp/ca099518-dde5-4eac-a1f1-38eff6e3e509.mspx?mfr=true - Once that was done i restarted setup from either x:\setup or look for the dvd drive letter and start setup from there. - I didnt bothered to format it from the command prompt but rather left it to do inside setup. I dont think that makes any difference. Setup completed succesfully !!

No such luck for me either. I guess you got lucky
"thisRhythm" wrote:

I may have found a solution. I've been having a lot of trouble getting Vista installed myself. I tried numerous attempts to bypass the error ("Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.") with no success. However, after almost destroying my computer keyboard out of rage, I stumbled upon a solution, maybe out of dumb luck. Vista finally installed. I'll list exactly what I did to make it install, but because I was so frustrated at the time of the solution, and I'm too afraid to try to reproduce this process, I can't guarantee this will solve everyone's problem.
I booted off of the installation DVD, my monitor displayed a grey loading bar and a text label: “Windows is loading files…” While this bar was being shown I held down F8, ignoring the system clicking sounds. When the bar reached 100% completion, with F8 still held down, I was prompted with a menu much like the extended boot menu of a windows OS (included safe mode and such options). I let go of F8 and chose the option near the bottom labeled "Debugging Mode." From there I continued the installation as normal, selected the partition I wanted, clicked next, and, like magic, it worked.
If this is a solution, my guess is that the debug kernel disables some safety flag on this part of the instillation. So, if this works for you, tell me. If it doesn’t, I may try to retrace my steps to figure out if I did anything in addition to this to force Vista to install.
Hope this helps, Jesse.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

That's a no go for me too! Your suggestion didn't work for me either.
Dell Dimension 4500 2.8Ghz Pentium IV ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128 mb All-in Wonder 1 Gig of RAM SATA 36 Gig Western Digital drive - 10,000 RPM SATA 250 Gig Maxtor drive w/ 16mb cache 7200 RPM IDE 300 Gig Maxtor drive w/ 16mb cache 7200 RPM External IDE 160 Gig Seagate drive 7200 RPM Creative Labs X-fi Extreme Music 16x Pioneer DVR-110D DVD Burner 8x Sony DRU-530 DVD Burner

"thisRhythm" wrote in message

I may have found a solution. I've been having a lot of trouble getting Vista installed myself. I tried numerous attempts to bypass the error ("Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.") with no success. However, after almost destroying my computer keyboard out of rage, I stumbled upon a solution, maybe out of dumb luck. Vista finally installed. I'll list exactly what I did to make it install, but because I was so frustrated at the time of the solution, and I'm too afraid to try to reproduce this process, I can't guarantee this will solve everyone's problem.
I booted off of the installation DVD, my monitor displayed a grey loading bar and a text label: "Windows is loading files." While this bar was being shown I held down F8, ignoring the system clicking sounds. When the bar reached 100% completion, with F8 still held down, I was prompted with a menu much like the extended boot menu of a windows OS (included safe mode and such options). I let go of F8 and chose the option near the bottom labeled "Debugging Mode." From there I continued the installation as normal, selected the partition I wanted, clicked next, and, like magic, it worked.
If this is a solution, my guess is that the debug kernel disables some safety flag on this part of the instillation. So, if this works for you, tell me. If it doesn't, I may try to retrace my steps to figure out if I did anything in addition to this to force Vista to install.
Hope this helps, Jesse.
"Grope For Luna" wrote:
I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

Any real fix for this? I have the same problen on a fresh 110gig HD and it tells me it doesnt fir the criteria.. HELP!!!!
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

"andy" wrote: Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary partition.)
WD 80GB IDE Drive Primary Master
C: 15GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Active primary partition with x64) 9GB free D: 60GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Primary partition for programs) 30GB free

SOLUTION
If you have multiple hard drives installed and even one of them is not supported by drivers either on the Windows Vista disc or on disks you have provided Setup, then you will receive the error message about not finding a compatible system volume.
I have a SATA RAID that Windows Vista will not recognize and an IDE drive that Vista can actually see. I just went into BIOS and disabled my RAID and I no longer receive the error message and I installed Vista on my IDE drive.
Now I'm having trouble finding Vista-compatible RAID drivers, but that's a different story.

Hi,
Obviously I was having the same trouble as everyone else... My HDD is 120GB Sata drive, and Vista sees the drive perfectly... Initial parts: Part1: Linux SWAP 1G, Part2: Linux EXT3 15G, Part3: Vista NTFS 30G (end of drive)...active
Now the part 3 is at the end of the drive for a reason... the drive is crap and loaded with bad sectors... luckily I know what parts of the drive are still usuable...
After trying almost EVERYTHING in this thread I decided to do the *right* thing:
1. started partition magic in dos 2. deleted part 3 3. created new part 3 but now 40962,8MB (still on END of drive) 4. made part 3 active... 5. applied, rebooted with Vista dvd...
Hopla... !@#%^&* problem fixed... So the CRITERIA is that your part needs to be round 40Gigs (No I'm not gonna try and see how small it may be on my system... it's installing already...:)
Hope this helps anyone trying this out
Cheers...

Vista setup is telling you that it cannot find an active primary partition, or is unable to create an active primary partition, on the disk that the BIOS is set to boot from.
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:10:02 -0700, Xaephod wrote:

Any real fix for this? I have the same problen on a fresh 110gig HD and it tells me it doesnt fir the criteria.. HELP!!!!
"Grope For Luna" wrote:
"andy" wrote: Can you describe the system volume? (That would be the active primary partition.)
WD 80GB IDE Drive Primary Master
C: 15GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Active primary partition with x64) 9GB free D: 60GB NTFS 16kb clusters (Primary partition for programs) 30GB free

i was having the same problem with this error after trying all the suggestions in this group i tried one more thing. the drive has a jumper set to master i removed it setting it to standalone drive. vista installed no problems.
"Bo" wrote:

Hi,
Obviously I was having the same trouble as everyone else... My HDD is 120GB Sata drive, and Vista sees the drive perfectly... Initial parts: Part1: Linux SWAP 1G, Part2: Linux EXT3 15G, Part3: Vista NTFS 30G (end of drive)...active
Now the part 3 is at the end of the drive for a reason... the drive is crap and loaded with bad sectors... luckily I know what parts of the drive are still usuable...
After trying almost EVERYTHING in this thread I decided to do the *right* thing:
1. started partition magic in dos 2. deleted part 3 3. created new part 3 but now 40962,8MB (still on END of drive) 4. made part 3 active... 5. applied, rebooted with Vista dvd...
Hopla... !@#%^&* problem fixed... So the CRITERIA is that your part needs to be round 40Gigs (No I'm not gonna try and see how small it may be on my system... it's installing already...:)
Hope this helps anyone trying this out
Cheers...

I can confirm that setting the target partition to 'Active' solved this problem.
I just tried to install Vista for the first time and got this error. I had previously formatted the drive with a 30G NTFS partition and a 10G Linux (Ext3) partition. Mandriva Linux was already installed and working in the 10G partition. Both partitions were 'Primary', but the Linux partition was 'Active'. These conditions resulted in the 'unable to find a system volume...' error.
I changed the NTFS partition to 'Active' - I used Acronis Disk Director to do this, but any partition tool should do - and Vista installed fine. A more meaningful error message might have been helpful!
"Stawik" wrote:

My client set partition, that he want install Vista on, as active partition. It solve his probblem.

I can confirm that setting the target partition to 'Active' solved this problem.
I just tried to install Vista for the first time. I had already formatted the 40G drive with a 30G NTFS partition and a 10G Linux (Ext3) partition. Mandriva Linux was installed and working in the 10G part. Both partitions were set as 'Primary', but the Linux partition was 'Active'. This resulted in the error. Setting the NTFS partition as 'Active' - I used Acronis Disk Director to do this, but any partition tool should do - and Vista installed OK.
I guess a more meaningful error message might have been helpful!
"Stawik" wrote:

My client set partition, that he want install Vista on, as active partition. It solve his probblem.

Try the following: 1. Disable all other hard drives exept the you are going to install to 2. Make sure that this drive is the first (after CD or floppy) boot drive
We have the same problems and after checking all other solution posted here we find out that this work.
Cheers
"Grope For Luna" wrote:

I've installed 4 releases of Vista but this is the first time I've had such a problem. I have an Athlon 64 3700 on a ASRock 939Dual although previous releases were installed on an Nforce2 board with Athlon 2500.
I have an ~80GB D: partition with 50GB available (16kb clusters), a full 80GB second drive with ~20GB available (16kb clusters)and the first partition on a third drive (27GB - 4kb clusters) and it won't install on either. When selecting a volume for installation, the Next button is enabled but when I press it, it gives me the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets it's criteria for installation" message. I've tried it with a virtual drive in x64 and by booting with the dvd. I formatted the 27GB partition with setup but it also failed. I tried unplugging my USB DVD-RW and installing from the virtual image to no avail. Anyone else have this problem or a possible solution for this?

My system was refusing to recognise my SATA drive too. Through similar "luck" I did manage to get it recognised after removing my IDE drives and also starting Vista in the Debug mode (don't know why, I'm sure I had ran that before).
I then had the System Volume issue next - didn't want to go into the nice new Partition I'd created for it through Partitiion Magic. In the end I relented, let it format my c: partition and it installed fine (now need to recreate my XP in the second partition).
It seems to me like there's a multitude of problems - what's working for one isn't working for another. Pretty disillusioning start for Vista!
"thisRhythm" wrote:

I may have found a solution. I've been having a lot of trouble getting Vista installed myself. I tried numerous attempts to bypass the error ("Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation.") with no success. However, after almost destroying my computer keyboard out of rage, I stumbled upon a solution, maybe out of dumb luck. Vista finally installed. I'll list exactly what I did to make it install, but because I was so frustrated at the time of the solution, and I'm too afraid to try to reproduce this process, I can't guarantee this will solve everyone's problem.
I booted off of the installation DVD, my monitor displayed a grey loading bar and a text label: “Windows is loading files…” While this bar was being shown I held down F8, ignoring the system clicking sounds. When the bar reached 100% completion, with F8 still held down, I was prompted with a menu much like the extended boot menu of a windows OS (included safe mode and such options). I let go of F8 and chose the option near the bottom labeled "Debugging Mode." From there I continued the installation as normal, selected the partition I wanted, clicked next, and, like magic, it worked.
If this is a solution, my guess is that the debug kernel disables some safety flag on this part of the instillation. So, if this works for you, tell me. If it doesn’t, I may try to retrace my steps to figure out if I did anything in addition to this to force Vista to install.
Hope this helps, Jesse.

Finally! I got vista to install. I unplugged all other hard disks, even those that I didn't give install drivers for, and vista installed. also, you need to set the partition active.
"Devin Canterberry" wrote:

SOLUTION
If you have multiple hard drives installed and even one of them is not supported by drivers either on the Windows Vista disc or on disks you have provided Setup, then you will receive the error message about not finding a compatible system volume.
I have a SATA RAID that Windows Vista will not recognize and an IDE drive that Vista can actually see. I just went into BIOS and disabled my RAID and I no longer receive the error message and I installed Vista on my IDE drive.
Now I'm having trouble finding Vista-compatible RAID drivers, but that's a different story.

windows unable find system volume

Windows Vista

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