Sunday, October 21, 2007

How to fix: "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria"

I ran in to an odd new error, odd to me anyways, when attempting to install Microsoft Windows Vista Premium Edition (though I believe this is independent of the version):

Problem: "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria"

After googling for an answer, I ran across several complaints from users trying to promote their machine from a Vista release candidate (RC) to the RTM (Release Edition). Nothing clearly pointed at what the problem was for me so I wanted to post this for anyone else who might have run into this issue.

Fix: Insure the hard disk you're attempting to install to is the primary and is the first in your BOOT SELECT ORDER. Some of the MSDN steps to resolve include making sure you are not attempting to install to a DYNAMIC disk, or a disk which has a bad boot loader.

That's it! Hope that helps you, Good Luck!

1 comment:

Ken Hanscom said...

So was this the replacement drive from you 10,000 rpm hard drive crash?