Question on reinstall of OEM Vista home premium

[Grez]

I want to do a clean reinstall of my vista home premium OEM version and basically start everything over on my hardrive as if brand new build. This is a system I built, but as the OEM version did not come with a manual, would like to know how to go about this. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[The Wise Monkey]

Ok, restart your computer and enter the BIOS, usually by pressing the Delete key, or F12 - it should say. You will need to change the boot order so that the CD/DVD drive is at the top, above the HD. This option should be under a "Boot Menu" tab, or something similar in the BIOS. Save and exit once you have changed the order, and put the Vista CD into your CD drive.

Let the PC restart, and it should say "Boot from CD/DVD, Press any key to boot from CD....." at which point, press a key. This will boot from the Vista CD.

From here on in, it is a fairly simple process - just follow the instructions to do a clean install of Vista. Don't forget your OEM key! :)

[otto]

I recently completed a build...I decided to try vista home premium 64.
That was probably a mistake. The computer ran great for 4 months now I get error after error.
System:
Amd 3600 x2 64n
Western Digital 320 gig sata
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
2 Gigs Crucial 6400
Raidmax 5300ss (their support stinks)
and 2 Asus optical drives

For the past 2weeks the computer has been freezing.
Have to hard boot system.
1/3 of the time I receive a disk read error.
1/3 I receive an error
relating to a usb port possibly not ejected properly.
1/4 of the time I receive an error that states possible hardware failure and to install my vista disk and run a diag. I bought OEM and am unable to find any diag tools.
Today I was finally unable to access vista w/ a registry missing file or corrupted error.
I have run check disk and defragged numerous times.
I am sending this from my 10 year old Dell.
I'm wondering if a clean install would help???

[The Wise Monkey]

It probably would, but you could also try running a repair on your OS. Follow the steps I mentioned above, and you should find an option to repair a current installation instead of doing a clean install.

The repair will effectively do a clean install of the Vista files while keeping all your programs and settings.

[otto]

So far so good.
No clean install needed yet...I am still receiving some error codes referring to
a device such as a camera or portable music device connected to a usb port
causing a conflict however I don't have any connected. At least the system is no longer freezing and is starting properly.

Thanks again...:)