installing xp on vista laptop

Dermot2468

Hi all, i got a dell m1330 xps laptop with windows vista. I want to format the hard drive and install xp. I have a windows xp installation disc and serial number. How do i go about formatting the hard drive? or could somebody point me in the direction of a guide or website with instructions.
Thanks, Dermot.

Gary ITR

just put in the windows xp disk and boot from the disk. Just make sure you have all the xp drivers downloaded before you do this

Sherifu

It's a fairly painless process.

http://www.dell-m1330-info.com/dell_m1330_windows_xp.html

Capt'n Midnight

don't forget only Vista Business allows you to downgrade to XP PRO
you can't go from home to previous versions of home

Dermot2468

Thanks for the replies everyone, i tried that guide and it did not work it loaded the setup files and tried to start windows and a blue error screen came up.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

don't forget only Vista Business allows you to downgrade to XP PRO
you can't go from home to previous versions of home

Its vista home basic and i have xp pro
I have a windows xp serial number, can i still not do this?

Overheal

Dermot2468 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies everyone, i tried that guide and it did not work it loaded the setup files and tried to start windows and a blue error screen came up.


Its vista home basic and i have xp pro
I have a windows xp serial number, can i still not do this?

you cant just plug in generic drivers for laptop equipment generally. Especially if its a Vista laptop: I'm guessing you have an ATi or Nvidia dedicated card in there for example? The drivers for that DO NOT come from their sites - they come from your laptop manufacturers site. Nvidia explains this briefly on their own site as to why it happens. For my own laptop, HP does not support an XP driver for their nvidia Geforce 8400M GS. So I cannot downgrade.

Go to your laptop manufacturers website and find all of the drivers for your machine - ensuring that those drivers are rated to work under Windows XP.

This needs to be stickied because I cant stress it enough.

dr.bollocko

Too true. It can be a painless process, so long as you get those drivers before formatting onto XP. You have to check compatibility
my DV series HP laptop had numerous issues when I downgraded and it took me a ridiculous amount of time to find compatible drivers from older variants of HP laptop. Got everything up and running perfect (better than perfect actually cos I even got one of those stupid LEDs switched off) and I now keep the USB key with same drivers in a sealed vault 14 miles below the earth's crust guarded by that bloke who owns securicor and Mr. T.

Now OP, if you fancy a bit more of a challenge, why not try a dualboot? Nothing like trying to setup a dualboot on a laptop with pre-existing vista and trying to also put on XP to make you throw your laptop straight out the window and never use a computer again.

Sherifu

Dermot2468 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies everyone, i tried that guide and it did not work it loaded the setup files and tried to start windows and a blue error screen came up.

Hmm, strange. I had no such problems. Can you give the steps you did and what happened. Blue Screen Error code if you can.


Quadboot for a challenge

Dermot2468

Thanks for everyones help, sherifu i went into the bios and turned off sata, i then booted from the xp installation disk and the setup started but would not finish i posted the blue screen in my second post.

I downloaded all the xp drivers from here http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=IE&l=en&s=gen&os=WLH&osl=en&servicetag=HMDGH3J&appIndex=dellspct and have them on a cd, i presume when dell give an option to select xp when chosing drivers that it will be compatable with everything.

Heres the specs if its any use:
1 N02X3303
1 XPS M1330 CORE 2 DUO T5450 1.66GHZ, 667, 2
1 13.3" WXGA (1280X800) DISPLAY WITH TRUEL
1 BIOMETRIC FINGERPRINT READER
1 SAVE EURO 70 INC VAT
1 20% OFF ON 3YR CONSUMER XPS PREMIUM HARD
1 TUXEDO BLACK & 2.0 MEGA PIXEL CAMERA FOR
1 ENGLISH/IRISH SHIP ACCESSORIES - POWER C
1 ENGLISH DOCUMENTATION XPS M1330
1 RESOURCE DVD XPS M1330 - (DIAGNOSTICS &
1 MEMORY DUAL-CHANNEL 2048MB (2X1024) 667M
1 160GB (5, 400 RPM) SATA HARD DRIVE
1 8XDVD+/-RW SLIM SLOT-LOAD DRIVE, INCLUDI
1 AC ADAPTER (65W)
1 PRIMARY 6-CELL 56WHR LI-ION BATTERY
1 NOT INCLUDED CARRY CASE
1 128 MB NVIDIA GEFORCE 8400M GS
1 MODEM NOT INCLUDED
1 INTEL? PRO WIRELESS 3945 802.11A/B/G MIN
1 EUROPEAN - DELL TRUEMOBILE 355 INTERNAL
1 UK/IRISH INTERNAL LIGHTWEIGHT KEYBOARD (
1 SOFTWARE DRIVERS XPS M1330
1 ENGLISH - VISTA HOME BASIC
1 ENGLISH MICROSOFT WORKS 9.0 (WORD PROCES
1 ENGLISH - ADOBE READER 8.1
1 DELL SUPPORT CENTER 2.0

Sherifu

Apologies, I missed the screenshot in the earlier post.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2718016&postcount=160

gamer

download drivermax prog ,export ALL drivers to my drivers folder, its unlikely winxp will have all the mobo/vga,drivers for a vista laptop.use drivers folder to reinstall the drivers xp ,doesnt,have,i understand vista ,and winxp drivers are not all the same,at least you,ll have alist of all devices,mobo,type,chipset type etc..

Dermot2468

Thanks for all the help from everyone, i'm typing this on the laptop with xp sucessfully installed. For furture reference heres how i did it, i used nlite to create a xp setup disc with the drivers installed already. Also i discovered that the xp version i had contained no services packs so i integrated sp2 into the install file using nlite aswell. Im currently installing the rest of the drivers for various bits and pieces.
Thanks for all yer help, Dermot.

Sherifu

Aha, the disc I used has SP2, i'm guessing that's why my install went smoothly first time out. Congrats. She should be flying along now.

Dermot2468

Hey, just having a bit of trouble renabling sata. when i went into bios and changed the settings xp would not load. I downloaded the sata drivers but there is no exe files in the drivers only files that wont run. Can anyone direct me how to use these drivers?
(There in the link i gave earlier)
Thanks

Sherifu

You can't enable it afaik.

gamer

GO 2 bios,advanced settings, enable bios onboard, set bios autodetect, sett all drives,0.1,etc to auto mode.

Dermot2468

I have no advanced settings in bios? when i enable sata it will not load xp. Do i not need to install the drivers first?

gamer

i have onboard sata, i didnt install any drivers, installed winxp with SP2 SLIPSTREAMED ON ,a cd, look at bios,boot options enable sata, boot riority,o,1, sata, or get round it by buying 20gig ide drive ,adverts ie, install windows on that, use sata as drive d:,,ide is c:,drive bootdrive,when installing xp, it usually says,press f6 , to install mobo,or sata drivers from a foppy or cdrom.
WHAT motherboard model,brand have you got.