Downgrading from Vista to XP pro.

[M. Cross]

So I purchased and XP pro upgrade disk a long time ago when I built my
computer and now I want to use it to on my laptop instead of using Vista. It
is a Gateway MT6705 notebook.

At first I tried installing 98se then upgrading using the disk but i keep
getting a blue screen regarding not being able to see the operating system. I
have a feeling that since it is a sata drive the drivers aren't available.
Then again, why would 98 work and not XP?

So then I reinstalled Vista and attempted to us the downgrade, but I
couldn't (obviously).

What can I do?

No matter what I do I keep getting issues with it not being able to detect
the hard drive. Why would it fully install 98 but not install XP? Is there a
way I can place the needed drivers onto the system that XP needs? Flashdrives
don't work on 98 without formating and CDs made in vista don't work in 98 and
there is no way to get the laptop's wireless driver to connect it to the
internet. I don't have a floppy drive for it.

Please help!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

So I purchased and XP pro upgrade disk a long time ago when I built
my computer and now I want to use it to on my laptop instead of
using Vista. It is a Gateway MT6705 notebook.

At first I tried installing 98se then upgrading using the disk but
i keep getting a blue screen regarding not being able to see the
operating system. I have a feeling that since it is a sata drive
the drivers aren't available. Then again, why would 98 work and not
XP?

So then I reinstalled Vista and attempted to us the downgrade, but I
couldn't (obviously).

What can I do?

No matter what I do I keep getting issues with it not being able to
detect the hard drive. Why would it fully install 98 but not
install XP? Is there a way I can place the needed drivers onto the
system that XP needs? Flashdrives don't work on 98 without
formating and CDs made in vista don't work in 98 and there is no
way to get the laptop's wireless driver to connect it to the
internet. I don't have a floppy drive for it.

Boot with the Windows XP CD, start the install, have your Windows 98 CD
ready to offer up when asked for qualifying media.

 

[M. Cross]

Boot with the Windows XP CD, start the install, have your Windows 98 CD
ready to offer up when asked for qualifying media.

When I do that it says it doesn't recognize the harddrive. That was my
original plan, but it didn't work. I can't even access the XP's fdisk feature
to delete or create partitions. It just says that there is no HDD.

 

[DL]

Does your notebook support winxp? ie are the drivers available?
Does Gateway warranty/support extend to winxp on this notebook?

 

[Andy]

When I do that it says it doesn't recognize the harddrive. That was my
original plan, but it didn't work. I can't even access the XP's fdisk feature
to delete or create partitions. It just says that there is no HDD.

Go into bios setup and see if there's a IDE/AHCI setting for the SATA
interface. If there is, set it to IDE. Otherwise, you have to load the
AHCI driver during Windows setup.