Dell didn't offer a downgrade option for this model of the XPS - although it
was offered for a lower-end model, which would probably have made my life
easier but the lower end model (same XPS, just cheaper) didn't have the hard
drive I wanted.
And I had bought a new, retail copy of XP before it was discontinued because
I knew I would want it on my next computer. It didn't occur to me that i
would have trouble downgrading an essentially identical computer (just w/
more memory & a different hard drive & video card)
The problem appears to be with the SATA drive. The BIOS identifies the
drive as SATA and does not offer an IDE alternative. In another part of the
BIOS, I can choose between ACHI and RAID, but since I don't have RAID, that
doesn't seem to be a fix.
(I always dual-boot Windows machines with a nice "stable" version on C: and
the newer, less stable version on E:. I've found it endlessly helpful over
the years. When one of them crashes, which always happens, I can get into
the other one and continue working until I have time to fix whatever caused
the other to crash.)
dd
"Shenan Stanley" wrote:
> dd wrote:
> > I got a new Dell with Vista 64 installed and must downgrade to XP
> > because of legacy apps that won't work under Vista.
> >
> > Setup blue screens after the screen for selecting drive - which
> > shows 4 options but no recognizable drive letter.
> >
> > Under Dell's installation, there is a small FAT16 utility partition
> > marked primary, followed by a small NTFS partition for Recovery,
> > also marked primary. There there is C: with an extended partition
> > and 3 logical drives (C-E). (All NTFS).
> >
> > I'm not sure if the problem is that the XP setup simply doesn't
> > recognize the hard drive of the problem is with those two very
> > small partitions located prior to C:.
> >
> > The drive is a standard WD 300GB.
>
> Why didn't you order it with the Downgrade option?
> Does Dell support the system you bought with XP installed?
>
> If Dell does support that model with XP - your best bet will be to wipe all
> the partitions and create a new one for XP.
>
> Truly - what I would do is keep Vista and run a virtual machine (Windows XP
> installed on it) for whatever applications you think will not run under
> Vista directly (unless they have some hardware component preventing such
> things?)
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
>
>