Ok,I have done a lot of these downgrades lately people,and here are a few things I have learnt,and should be of help to anyone who hates the crap line that HP throws at you:
"WE DO NOT SUPPORT XP DOWNGRADES" SCREW THEM!!!

1) You need the sata drivers integrated with your xp installation cd.Most laptops nowadaya come with sata hard disks and no floppy drive,so there is no way to load sata drivers,except for a usb bootable xp installation cd,and I won't even go there,too complex for first timers

2) To integrate the drivers,use NLITE.It's free,great,and does everything for you.Just download the intel sata drivers for your motherboard from the manufacturer site,intel calls it matrix storage manager.

3) Make sure you select the single driver option in NLITE.If you select the multiple folder option during integration,it won't work.

4) Don't slipstream SP3 RC2.Some of these things are not compatible with it yet.Stick to the tried and tested SP2.

5)If you get an error whiule copying setup files during XP installation similar to this "XP CANNOT COPY THE FILE DRIVER.CAB", burn the setup image to a DVD instead of a CD.It works,don't ask me why,but you will thank me when you are able to boot from the DVD and complete setup.

Please post here for any further help,tc

Surprised with your qualifications you cant troubleshoot better!

I have tried all of these:

1) USB startup disk
2) Changing the CD ROM drive
3) Checking hard disk mount points
4) Checking driver issues
5) Tried with multiple original CDs
6) Read through all the microsoft and HP support papers

And you know what?Nothing worked. Everytime I tried starting with the CD,the same error.The DVD worked for me,and I wanted to save a lotta other users a lotta frustration.Plus it's the easy,non-technical way.I dunno how much the users here will understand if I start describing in detail the things top be done,so why don't you try helping out instead of being a smart alec?

I'm a bit puzzled by this post . My copy of XP Pro SP2 has all the sata drivers included and I don't need to use a floppy at all . good job as I don't have one . The OS instillation recognises my Sata DVD and Sata HDD'S .

Mine too - however if you need to install RAID drivers at F6 then you will need to use this or a similar method.

Now then Mr Anand 'MCSE:Security,MCDST,A+' Ramani, perhaps I'm too ignorant to understand the points you're trying to convey, would you care to explain a little more elequently for the sake of our less gifted members, myself included?

A few points.

Downgrade? Do you mean from Vista to XP? If so it's probably better just to format the disk and do a fresh install with XP, preferably a version of XP slipstreamed with SP2, as you said.

What's this got to with HP? I presume you mean Hewlett Packard? And Hewlett packard laptops only?

Are we to understand this is for people who want to run XP on an HP laptop supplied installed with Vista?

If so why not boot with the XP CD and choose the option to format. And then XP will recognise SATA devices straight out of the tin.

Could this possibly be a plug for the NLITE software? I think that likely as you mention it several times.

I haven't removed the references to NLITE or banned you for spamming as this software is free and if it does what it claims to do does actually look quite good. Whatever, it's not good protocol or etiquette to join a forum and straightaway plug software. That's just not on, I'm afraid.

If you are posting here in good faith and wishing to help people I'm afraid you're going to have to re-word your post and make it easier to understand. More significantly, before giving a solution, please outline the problem. Because as things are, reading your post there's a lot of guesswork on our part (well there is with me anyway).

As for feckit being a smart alec, you, my friend, are not known well here yet, whereas he is. You'd do yourself better to accept his humour and laugh along with him rather than getting all prissy and accuse him of being a smart alec. Not really the best way to win friends and influence people I'm afraid.

We welcome good advice here and if you can help people we will welcome you, although I should add the ability to help people is not a prerequisite to join and be welcome here.

Please take my requests and comments in good spirit and if you could, kindly make your advice a little clearer.

And welcome to the forum

Yours, Floppy 'City & Guilds Electronic Servicing Pt III in Colour TV Reception & Digital Techniques; ERS Qualified Radiographer; Basic Food Hygiene Certificate; Assorted GCE's and Chief Cook & Bottle Washer' Bootstomp.

That's true, but I do believe this thread concerns SATA drivers and not RAID drivers.

Besides, if a machine isn't equipped with a floppy drive and the RAID array is set up in the motherboard's memory, XP is quite happy to install and have the RAID drivers installed afterwards with all fairly recent motherboards.

Yep, I realised that hence first agreeing with Abarb - was just saying it is a good method for installing RAID at F6 without a floppy if thats what is needed

I have used nLite for slipstreaming my original XP SP2 CD with later MS hotfixes/updates and other packs and it is good

Good stuff available HERE

Well well, it looks as though this is maybe what I used to integrate XP with SP2 all that time ago, I had forgotten what software I used.

It's pretty simple if you know what chipset you are using for integrating or slipstreaming the SATA drives into Xp boot CD using nlite.
I have prepared the details guide here.
http://maxeasyguide.blogspot.com/20...llation-cd.html