Vista down-grading to XP

[killerjacky]

I wanna ask how to down-grade the whole OS to XP
I got my XP disc, and Vista is installed in my new Dell notebook (Inspiron
1520)
When I install XP, it just said that it cannot recongize the my harddisk
installed.
But its fine in BIOS and in Vista.
May I know the reason for that? and what's the solution?

 

[Bistey Csaba]

I wanna ask how to down-grade the whole OS to XP
I got my XP disc, and Vista is installed in my new Dell notebook (Inspiron
1520)
When I install XP, it just said that it cannot recongize the my harddisk
installed.
But its fine in BIOS and in Vista.
May I know the reason for that? and what's the solution?

Well the reason most likely that laptop has SATA HDD and Windows XP do
not include SATA drivers. The solution should be boot Vista, put
notebook driver cd into the notebook search SATA driver on it, copy it
onto a floppy disc. Then reboot, and boot from Windows XP CD when the
"Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver"
shows up, press "F6". Then, press "S" to specify additional device when
next screen pops up. Put the driver floppy disk you made in and press
enter to continue. Now Xp should find whatever SATA controller driver
from floppy, select it and press enter. The HDD should be visible for XP
installer after this and you can continue installation.

Csaba

 

[killerjacky]

Thank you.
Yet, i tried this before with SATA driver on my USB storage drive and not
work. Seems that it default only read drvier from floppy, but i dont got one

 

[Bistey Csaba]

The only other solution i know is to integrate sata driver to your
existing XP installation media. To do so you should use nlite (from
www.nliteos.com).

Detailed description of the process found here:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

Csaba

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Here is some additional information on reinstalling XP:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I wanna ask how to down-grade the whole OS to XP
I got my XP disc, and Vista is installed in my new Dell notebook (Inspiron
1520)
When I install XP, it just said that it cannot recongize the my harddisk
installed.
But its fine in BIOS and in Vista.
May I know the reason for that? and what's the solution?

It's your computer, so the choice is, ultimately, yours.

However, there could be a couple possible adverse repercussions of
which you should be aware. First and foremost, if the specific computer
model in question was designed specifically for Vista, there may well be
no WinXP-specific device drivers available to make the computer's
diverse components work properly. Consult the computer's manufacturer
about the availability of device drivers. Secondly, removing an
OEM-installed operating system and replacing it with another will almost
invariably void any and all support agreements and, sometimes, even the
warranty. You would, at the very least, have to re-install Vista before
getting any support from the manufacturer. Again, consult the
computer's manufacturer for specifics. Thirdly, there will be the
additional cost involved in purchasing a WinXP license for this new
computer.

After backing up any data you wish to transfer to the new OS
installation, simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be
offered the opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part
of the installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of
boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

Then, assuming that the laptop can be made to work with WinXP, the
backed up data can be restored and applications (Those that are
WinXP-compatible, that is) re-installed.



--

Bruce Chambers

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[killerjacky]

To Bistey Csaba:
I tried to use Nlite to slipstream the XP installation disc. But the disc
turn out cannot boot the PC and appear warning something like "cannot find
NTxx" (I cant clearly see what is "NTXX", they appear in a second and start
to boot from the HD for vista). I'm still trying on slipstreaming.

To dzomlija:
I still have concern about compatibility of Vista on old softwares. I recent
working habit is running a few software simultaneously: I run the online game
and let it afk-ing (u may know what game i'm playing ^^), while working on my
project with 3Ds Max 9, using Winamp to play some music, maybe at the same
time buffering videos on some site like youtube, browsing with firefox for
references for my project, and maybe downloading something(seldom), I may
also using Photoshop when later I started on the texture part of my project.
You can see I am using quite a lot resources on my PC, so I want to do the
same on my notebook but dont want the OS using too much resources. Also I
dont want to waste time to see if the software is completely compatible on
Vista, and I wonder what should I do if they're not.