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General discussion

New Advent K200 Vista to XP downgrading problem!

Sep 17, 2007 6:30PM PDT

Hi guys,

Well it happened, i was foolish enough to buy a laptop from PC world with the dreaded vista pre-installed.

I promptly went out and bought XP home, wiped the laptop from all signs of vista, and all installed ok.

A few days later after multiple hours of trouble free computing, i get a BsoD, followed quickly by constant rebooting. When it trys to load windows it says the system folder is corrupt.

So, i try a repair. But this time when i try to install XP it hangs on the 'setup is loading windows' screen, then reboots and starts all over again.

So, i go to PC world and they inform me that the BIOS in my new laptop has to be downgraded to accept the XP installation. Now, i can do this task, but i cant find the right BIOS files for the job.


My BIOS version is Phoenix 1.11, but those muppets at PC world couldnt tell me which BIOS i need to allow the XP install. And i'm not paying them

Discussion is locked

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Sounds more like a hardware failure than the bios.
Sep 17, 2007 9:34PM PDT

Restore the vista and if that fails you have a warranty issue to tackle.

I doubt it's the BIOS.

Bob

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Vista is not an option right now
Sep 18, 2007 6:28PM PDT

Hi Guys,

The reason i'm using home and not vista as its a laptop for my mother, and she bought XP home herself. She hates vista, so vista goes....

When trying to do a recovery via a CD boot from the XP home CD, it loads all the files, then hangs on the 'setup is starting windows' screen. So i cant even get in to the partition screen to try a repair.

After hanging on the 'setup is starting windows' screen, it hangs a while then reboots and starts all over again. I dont have the option in the BIOS to alter anything to do with SATA modes. And my HDD is recognized in the BIOS.

I could format the drive with a boot CD,(which is my next step) but without finding the cause of the sytem hang on windows setup, i'm sure its going to happen again once i try to re-install windows.

Could this be a SATA driver problem? I ask this because, at every point where the system is trying to load something from the hard drive, it just hangs then reboots.

Or maybe the BIOS in the laptop cant change a perticular mode for the HDD, thus making me need a downgraded BIOS???

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SATA
Sep 19, 2007 2:07AM PDT

SATA is not supported natively by XP. But this is covered too many times in this forum (stick posts and others.)

I think you found the issue.

Bob