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General discussion

ARGH! Vista -> XP?!

Oct 4, 2007 6:02AM PDT

I am trying to install XP on my new laptop, which has Vista Home Premium but I'm seriously fed up already. It's as if they've deliberately made it as difficult as possible.

My laptop is a Rock X770. I have a SATA HDD, which had 2 volumes initially but I removed one (which has left me with 20GB unallocated, and apparently Vista won't let me extend the other volume).

It won't let me format the disk.

If I boot up with an XP recovery disk, it just gives me a black screen for ages, before booting Vista as normal.

I have no idea what to do just to wipe my HDD, get rid of Vista, and get XP installed successfully. I have read other threads and I can't even seem to get past the first stage of formatting.

Please help.

Discussion is locked

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Try this...
Oct 4, 2007 6:13AM PDT

First, be sure to create a set of recovery DVDs so you can restore Vista down the road if need be. You should find an option to do this in your Start Menu if they didn't come with the laptop. Once that's done use either DBAN or KillDisk to wipe the drive. After that your only issue may be that it's a SATA hard drive...sometimes drivers are needed during the install process.

Hope this helps,
John


P.S. You weren't able to extend the partition because of a restriction on extending the primary partition, which can cause problems.

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SATA Drivers?
Oct 4, 2007 6:25AM PDT

Ok, I have the Vista disk. Can you recommend where I would find drivers for the hard drive? There are none on the laptop website and I have no idea where else to look.

I have another laptop so I can begin trying to wipe this one now, that's not a problem.

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Quite frankly
Oct 4, 2007 12:27PM PDT

I suspect that you are not going to be able to get XP to run right on your Rock whatever laptop, some hardware seems to have been intentionally brought past where XP will run correctly (IE: Graphics, wireless, and some motherboard drivers) I've had several clients have me try for them, my answer now is "if it's in the return with minimal $$ restock charge- do it-, if you're unable to do that, get used to Vista because you are glued to it."

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XP was an option
Oct 4, 2007 7:05PM PDT

When I bought the laptop, I had various choices of Windows, and XP was on the list (for $100 extra), so wouldn't that imply that it can support it OK? My GPU is the latest Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT, which was released in June, but I don't know anything about it's design being suitable for XP/Vista.

So provided [hoping] that isn't an issue, I have so far been unsuccessful in formatting my hard drive. I don't have an external floppy but it says on the DBAN site that it can be used with a CD/DVD or a USB flash drive alternatively. So I am interested to know why everybody keeps insisting that it be done with an external floppy?

I have a 40GB USB drive - is it unlikely that it will work from that?

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The only one of these I ever got to work
Oct 4, 2007 11:35PM PDT

Was a mid line Dell 1520, generic Intel graphics, 945 chipset, 160Gb Sata Hard drive. I long ago made a boot CD of the MES suite-(Morguds Erasure suite) because option three works so well at blasting the hard drive back to bare naked, un-setup with anything. XP and Vista do something at un almost undetectable level to a drive 'Tattooing' them some way. Anyway, Option three, then boot with XP cd (or dvd if you have MCE) Have the drivers for your Sata ready on a floppy-Absolutely must have on a floppy, I know of NO way to get them in off of a CD-(I'll dance naked in the street if I ever figure out how to do that.) The usual boot with XP disk, press F6, load the Sata drivers and you'll be cooking. I read some about your Rock 770 and still predict that your XP install will bever be right. Just my Zwei Pfennigs.

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Well it's nice to be prepared if it doesn't work
Oct 8, 2007 12:06AM PDT

But what sort of problems can I expect with XP not running correctly (if it doesn't)?

An important question I need to ask is where exactly do I find the drivers for my SATA? I have no idea whatsoever as to what I need to look for or where I would find them. I don't know the model of the mother board or the hard drive, so...