Is it possible to install Vista from the internet?

Here's my situation:

My hard drive had been formatted and I want to install Vista back onto it. I have tried using the recovery discs that best buy supplied with the purchase of my laptop a while back, but when I get to disc 2 it stops installing and I get the message :wimapplyimage fail. error:0x45d. There is no longer a recovery partition on my hard drive, and the discs don't seem to work (unless it is a problem with my hard drive), so I was wondering if it is possible to install Vista from the net like you can with Ubuntu or other linux OS's. If not, is it possible to maybe make an installation cd or usb? I have the product key, but I don't have a working vista computer (I may be able to borrow my friend's if it is absolutely required however). Could I somehow get the files from the internet?

Thanks

You might be able to do a "network install" with WAIK (I think that's the right acronym...), but it is probably easier to just download the installer directly

32 bit: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/08/windows-vista-free-direct-download-link/
64 bit: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/12/22/64-bit-x64-windows-vista-official-direct-download-links/

petteyg359 said:

You might be able to do a "network install" with WAIK (I think that's the right acronym...), but it is probably easier to just download the installer directly

32 bit: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/08/windows-vista-free-direct-download-link/
64 bit: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/12/22/64-bit-x64-windows-vista-official-direct-download-links/

Click to expand...

Thank you very much!

The download links on that website dont seem to work however. Would you happen to know any other sites with the download?

Look for an install.wim or some other large .wim file on your restore DVD's. Once you find that and have access to the command line, you might be able to use imagex to apply the .wim to your formatted hard drive.

If there not reading your disks a common error could be that your memory is bad. Bad memory often times shows up by failing to read disks when trying to reload operating systems... (just a thought if this option does not work) there is also installing it from a USB flash drive...

TempliNocturnus said:

Look for an install.wim or some other large .wim file on your restore DVD's. Once you find that and have access to the command line, you might be able to use imagex to apply the .wim to your formatted hard drive.

Click to expand...

I found a 214 mb boot.wim file. Would that be the one?

@imposter: It's able to read the 1st disc, but the problem comes up on the 2nd. Is there any way to check if the memory is bad? Also, what size would the flash drive need to be if I go that route? Would an external harddrive work?

Try this, if you can find the appropriate files on your recovery disc.

RobOmbg said:

I found a 214 mb boot.wim file. Would that be the one?

@imposter: It's able to read the 1st disc, but the problem comes up on the 2nd. Is there any way to check if the memory is bad? Also, what size would the flash drive need to be if I go that route? Would an external harddrive work?

Click to expand...

No it's not the boot.wim, nor is it that small. It should be named install.wim and it should be a few GB in size. Search your dvd's for *.wim; it should be in there somewhere and hopefully undamaged.

AFAIK:
boot.wim is the partial Windows environment that runs when you boot the installer CD.
install.wim is the full Windows image that gets installed to your drive.

Are you sure your "second" recovery disc is even necessary? Vista is a single DVD. That first disc might be all you need.

RobOmbg said:

@imposter: It's able to read the 1st disc, but the problem comes up on the 2nd. Is there any way to check if the memory is bad? Also, what size would the flash drive need to be if I go that route? Would an external harddrive work?

Click to expand...

http://www.memtest.org/ , Burn it to a cd or usb flash drive(it will probably format the flash drive) , and boot of that cd or usb drive

Also if you locate a person with an OEM copy of whatever version of windows you have, you can reinstall with the key under your laptop...I would highly suggest to use this option than using your recovery disk as there wont be bloatware

downloading MS OS' from any site other then MS, is not legal FYI.

what you can use is a PXE server assuming you have images to get the files from.

if the system is OEM it likely has 2 disks because of all the "Extra" crap OEM's install.

ask a friend for an OEM Vista disk