HP have said removing 7 and clean-installing XP from an OEM disc is
"not possible", by which I think they mean there would be major driver
problems.
I'd be grateful for any other recommendations.
Michael
The HP user to user forums, may have discussions about installing
WinXP on the various models of laptops. Also, you might try
looking on one of the notebook forums (notebookreview ?),
as at least one of the sites has occasionally offered
advice on installing video drivers. I would consider the
video driver to be the toughest part, since the video
driver may contain details for the particular panel
used with the graphics chip. Not just any driver will
necessarily work. The drivers for notebooks, aren't
generic like for desktop video cards. For most of the
other bits and pieces of hardware, chances are you can
find the software needed elsewhere.
The implication of this, in terms of timing windows, is you'd
be looking at purchasing a notebook which is just about to
go out of production. That would give time, for the user
base to find the drivers and document the installation
recipe. If a notebook came out today, Thursday, you
would not expect the user base to have a complete answer
on Friday. So it'll mean buying a mature notebook, like
last year's model, and preferably one where the user base
has a complete recipe for installation.
In terms of the installation process, all you need to get
started, is the right driver to access the hard drive
inside the notebook. Be it the built-in WinXP vanilla
IDE driver, or pressing F6 and offering an AHCI driver.
For the AHCI driver (assuming a notebook where the BIOS
is "stuck" in AHCI mode), you'd likely need to build a
slipstreamed WinXP CD, using NLite. That might be enough,
for the Windows installer to use a built-in VESA video driver, and
you'd end up at 640x480, looking at WinXP after it is installed.
Then, you'd be faced with the rest of the driver recipe, and
lots of reboots. But to get past the AHCI issue, you'd work
with NLite to solve it (slipstream in the AHCI driver for
your chipset). The reason this is necessary, is the notebook
won't have a floppy drive, to offer drivers after pressing
F6.
http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html
For a short time, there was one chipset, where it was
"impossible" to find WinXP drivers for the chipset. But
that situation didn't stay that way (they showed up after
a few months). I think the odds are good, you can install
just about all the drivers needed. But don't buy a notebook,
without doing the necessary research first. You *must* buy
a popular model of notebook, if you expect other people
to figure this stuff out for you. If nobody has your
notebook, you'd be on your own.
Paul
