Vista beta 1 install on VMware 5: Vista setup won't format the drive

When you try to install Vista B1 on a fresh VMware machine, Vista setup cannot successfully format the drive. This is a special case of an issue documetned in teh release notes, that Vista setup cannot install to what MS calls a "RAW" partition. Of course "RAW" is not some special filesystem analagous to FAT or NTFS, but simply an unpartitioned, unformatted volume.

In the VMware forums, "Wolfschadoe" provides this workaround, which worked for me, too:

This fix works reliably for me:
1. Initial Vista install boot, at drive selection, delete the partition and recreate it. Still can't format at this point.
2. Reset the VM.
3. Now VM tries to boot from Network, bypassing CD and HDD boot. Press ESC for a boot menu. [Note from Doofusdan: Wolfschadoe had an extra, unnecessary reset in this step - I removed it here.]
4. Select CD drive to boot from menu.
5. At drive selection in Vista startup, select the proper partition and hit next. (it should be available).
6. Setup continues normally. Enjoy.