Installing Windows XP on Windows Vista

madarekrap

Ok, so my PC is about 3 years old, a Dell 8400 wit 1GB Ram, that originally came with Windows XP installed. However I very foolishly decided to put Windows Vista on it and now really really really regret it!!!!!! The PC had a system restore facility built in where you would puch ctrl+F11 on bootup and it would bring up the symantec system restore where all data could be deletred and the system restored to 'as new'. This option doesn't seem to be available anymore for some reason and when I insert my Windows XP cd i can't install it, I assume Vista won't let you downgrade? However when I try to boot from the CD, the installation seems to be working but then I get some notice about how no hard drive could be found to install to? PLease please please help anybody, I hate Vista and want XP back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BKtje

There is no way that machine would be able to handle vista comfortably but i guess you already know that.

Chances are you have a sata hard drive which is not supported by your version of windows XP. You would need to get sata drivers from the hard dirve website and stick em on a floppy. Then when XP asks whether to installed 3rd party raid drivers during the cd boot you hit the f9 key (or whatever it is) and select the drivers for it. Then follow on screen instructions.

Let us know if you don't have a sata drive and we'll figure out what else could be causing it.

Good luck.

madarekrap

it is running vista quite comfortably i might add but there are so many compatability issue with Vista and so on.....

unnameduser

if you do not have a floppy drive you can create a custom xp installation disk and add the drive to the xp image using nlite. Works a treat.

madarekrap

ok, i tried to use nlite to build a custom installation disk but when i try to boot from it im still getting the same sort of message (ie cant find a hard drive....) i added the drivers that i got from the WD website in the drivers section of the process, any ideas?

Donald-Duck

madarekrap wrote: »

i but there are so many compatability issue with Vista and so on.....

No, there is not.

Not unless you're in a business and using inhouse application wrote in VB 10 years ago.

madarekrap

well bud, im not here to justify what im saying to you, i use Solidworks 2006 and several games that are extremely difficult to get working on Vista, im not asking you, im telling you, and to be honest if you can't contribute in a positive manner then I will thank you to stay away from my thread, thanks

Overheal

Another thing you can try Madarekrap is using Microsoft's Virtual PC software, and its much less painful to get setup. I did this last year to run my programming compiler while i waited for a newerr version.

Just get it from microsofts website, and have your xp disc handy. in esscence you would launch an XP environment inside of vista. and since its in essence an emulator, it doesnt require you to have any xp compatible drivers or anything like that. The downside is its not as fast as a pure xp build but for older games it should be fine.

madarekrap

cheers man

Capt'n Midnight

Overheal wrote: »

Another thing you can try Madarekrap is using Microsoft's Virtual PC software, and its much less painful to get setup. I did this last year to run my programming compiler while i waited for a newerr version.

The downside is that you need another license to run windows in a VM

If the vista was an upgrade version it killed the XP license when you upgraded it
not sure if you can go back to Xp , but you could not have dual boot or VM

if it's the full retail vista the you should be ok


You can have a trial version of server 2003 / server 2008 in a vm and the license is extendable up to 240 days !

ttm

You could try this
http://forums.techguy.org/all-other-software/455251-how-2-install-xp-laptop-2.html towards the end your PC gets a mention (BIOS option to make your SATA drive appear to the OS as an IDE drive) I think that option might slow down the disk access a tad, so you might want to research that a bit more.

Capt'n Midnight

ttm wrote: »

You could try this
http://forums.techguy.org/all-other-software/455251-how-2-install-xp-laptop-2.html towards the end your PC gets a mention (BIOS option to make your SATA drive appear to the OS as an IDE drive) I think that option might slow down the disk access a tad, so you might want to research that a bit more.

yeah set it as the old mode and when windows in installed you can install the SATA driver and change the bios back to get SATA speed,

or you could try the F6 trick , if you can find a driver disk , intel wanted theirs slipstreamed which means burning cd's and messing with files

I'm not so sure about the whole AHCI thing. All I know it does is enable NCQ which from what I've read only improves performance for server-type applications and can make things worse for others.

Alun

Karsini wrote: »

I'm not so sure about the whole AHCI thing. All I know it does is enable NCQ which from what I've read only improves performance for server-type applications and can make things worse for others.

It doesn't really do much at all, performance wise, for a normal PC, but one thing it does do is enable hot-plugging for eSATA devices which may be a reason for enabling it. It's the reason I've done it on my machine anyway.

BostonB

madarekrap wrote: »

ok, i tried to use nlite to build a custom installation disk but when i try to boot from it im still getting the same sort of message (ie cant find a hard drive....) i added the drivers that i got from the WD website in the drivers section of the process, any ideas?

You don't need drivers for the WD hard disk. But for the sata controller on your motherboard, which you'll get from the Dell site.

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=Dell+8400+sata+driver+XP+install&meta=