Craig.Hewitt, Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum. You will need to install the Sata Driver. On one of the setup screens is an option to install drivers on the lower right side of the screen. Choose this option and put the Dell Driver disk in. The driver it is looking to install is the Intel Matrix Storage Driver. If you need to download this driver and put it on a disk you can click the title below. Another way to complete the install without first installing the driver is to change the bios setting to ATA. To do this restart the system and press F2 to enter setup. Once there you can TAB down to Onboard Devices and hit Enter. Then tab down to SATA Operation. You will then see at the top of the screen on the right side ATA and AHCI. Change this to ATA. Save the changes and exit out. Once the system restarts you should be able to complete the install. After the install and you have loaded the drivers you will need to go back into the bios and change the setting back to AHCI. Intel Storage Driver
For the past 2 days now ive been trying to reinstall Vista.  When im at the 'Completing Insallation' the green progress bar doesnt move.  After about 30-40 minutes the screen will go black but i am still able to move the mouse.     If anyone has a solution, or any input it would be greatly appreciated.     Craig.
Reinstalling Vista on my Inspiron 1720