failed Vista install...want to rid myself of it

[guruboy]

I got Vista Home Basic for free, so I attempted to install it onto a 40GB HDD that I have in addition to my 250GB HDD, which has my (good) Windows XP Pro. I ran the DVD while in XP Pro and went through the basic setup process. Then, when setup rebooted by itself, strange things began to happen. It went to a Vista-style boot screen (as in, the font is from Vista) like "select which thing to boot" and it had "old Windows installation" and "setup rollback" (or something like that) as choices. The "old" one is of course my XP Pro installation, which I can select and use...but when I try Vista, it doesn't really work. I get the Vista background and a message saying that installation is compete...but then the computer restarts (I'm assuming there is some sort of error, because I know that by default the computer will restart on an error in Vista).

Everything from my XP Pro installation is here and everything...but for some reason it seems that the Vista setup files are on my 250GB HDD! I know this because I unplugged the 40GB...the one that I selected during Vista setup! What gives?! The "boot choosing" screen is extremely annoying...and I've decided that I don't want Vista - I just want to get RID of it! Are there just some setup files on my 250GB (the C drive) to delete?

[Statica]

To remove the Vista bootloader .. boot up using your XP CD and select R for the recovery console.
When you get to the prompt (after the admin password) type the commands in sequence:
fixmbr
fixboot

That should be it.
fixmbr fixes the master boot record, fixboot writes up a new partition boot sector to your system partition.

By the way, have you run the Vista compatibility test before installing Vista? Would help to know why you're getting the errors.