hey,

I'm having serious issues with my vista and have slax burnt on a cd and was wondering what commands i can use to delete my harddrive and put vista on it again. i was able to get all my data backed up to an external drive by using the slax though. thanks

Thios is in readme's and howto's all over the place. Read the docs on the CD. The install should guide you through.
If you have no data on the vista partition, you do not need vista
One way:
Partition the disk Vista(ntfs), swap, boot(ext3), & /(ext3)
vista and boot are optional, and need not be large.

Run vista install; Run linux install.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Why do you need the 'slax' Livecd to delete the partition?

If you just want to wipe the drive then just use the 'Vista' install cd to setup the partition accordingly. You could then use the M$ tools to re-size for the partition(s) to allow a Linux install.

The vista cd does not load, the computer refuses doesn't boot from the dvd drive but it boots slax from that drive - weird, I know. when i start the computer in any mode all it does is give me a black screen with the pointer that i can move around. i can leave it like that all day and it wont go to the windows login screen. so i just want to format the harddrive and then use the vista cd, maybe then it will work. hence i need to know how to format harddrive from the slax cd cause i can load slax from the cd and was able to back up my harddrive via it.

Well you can delete the hard drive, but if it won't boot your CD you won't have much luck installing it afterwards then,likely the disc is damaged or corrupt. I would look for a new Windows Disc, or contact the manufacturer for a OEM Copy of the disc for your computer. If you don't feel like shooting any of those directions, you either can use it as a paperweight(sorry for negativity), OR install linux distro.