I have bought a media centre and chose first to put Vista on it. So I burned my downloaded ( from MS ) copy and off I went, I can get so far and when it starts to install after I agree to the terms it will go for 10 minutes and then it will blue screen.

I decided to try media centre so I borrowed the cds and tried that. When I get to the file copy process it fails on copying a random file.

I have tried different media, a different cd unit but the same thing happens.

It wont let me install anything on it !!!but when I take the hard drive into my other desktop it will install fine.

I am at my wits end. any ideas ?

What is the make and model of the computer?

Windows XP Media Center is only an OEM operating system. In general very proprietary. It is very probable that the BIOS and or motherboard has been "branded" to XP Media Center. And every manufacturer will have a different version of Media Center specific to the hardware.

Anyway my first suggestion would be to check the computers web site and or contact the manufacturer to see if you can recovery the original Media Center.

Can you still boot into the original Media Center?

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119572/rb/0

Here is the barebones I bought.

Did this computer come with an operating system installed (media center) or no?

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/0...9190581,00.htm

I doubt that it is Vista ready. And again I doubt that the operating system can be changed. Assuming that it had one installed. Did it?

I had to buy the sata drive seperately so it didn't come with an operating system preinstalled.

Can I please add something to the case.

I have now tried an IDE pre built drive in the machine and it blue screens on boot and in safe mode.

I have bought a new SATA drive and it wont let me build it with MCE 2005 and blue screens when I install vista on it.

I am all out of ideas. I really am.

Windows XP Media Center is a proprietary operating system (OEM). I don't know where you got this CD but it must be a recovery CD for a specific brand of computer. As such I doubt that you can clean install it on a blank drive.

As to Vista I doubt that this computer can run Vista. It does not have the proper hardware.

This leaves getting a version of XP or you can try a Linux system such as Ubuntu which is free.