BSOD after following read and run malware thread

Ok, those partitions look like the 55MB is the Dell diags and the 10GB is the Dell recovery. It's difficult to tell from looking at them from a boot CD but if you could see those from within Windows properly, my guess is that neither could be utilised without a lot of serious rebuilding.

You could try checking the Dell site for the F-key to access Diags or Recovery to test whether the MBR/partition settings are still as it left the factory.

Otherwise, I think you should try to clear all of those partitions from your install DVD then allocate 1x 100GB partition for Vista and the remainder for your own data/downloads, etc. Or whatever your personal choice is.

 

One final, silly question out of curiosity; what's the reason for having vista in a separate partition?

 

Ignore that last post I got what I needed from google. Thanks for all the help guys.

 

It's mostly about separating user data from Windows; if Windows gets bugged, it can be wiped/reinstalled without needed to touch any user data (it's quite easy to set the 'My' folders to reside on a different partition or even disk); it has a benefit when it comes to making backup images too - 1 image for Windows, 1 for the data.

Of course, should a disk develop a terminal fault, it's all lost anyway.

 

www.dban.org - you can get the .ISO here.

I've had some trouble using Hiren's version of dban as well. Just didn't seem to work for me either.

 

It's not from mini windows xp

 

No, as I tried to explain earlier, it's from the factory Dell install and contains the hidden bootable diagnostics, probably the best explanation of the method(s) used by Dell is at this link. It's a long read and explains why I asked about the origins of the PC earlier - Dell's are different.