Windows 7 I need help going from Windows 7 back to XP

[Leppy]

I have windows 7 installed on my laptop but want to go back to XP

when i boot the laptop from my XP cd it tells me that I have no harddrive installed and that i cant reformat

im not sure what to do, any help would be appreciated.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

Your XP CD probably doesn't have the SATA drivers installed.
To re-install Windows XP in this case you have 2 choices

1) Slipstream the SATA drivers and create a new Windows XP disk -- just google SLIPSTREAM WINDOWS XP there's loads of references.

2) You *might* in the BIOS have an option for running SATA drives as legacy IDE drives -- turning this option on should allow you to install your Windows XP cd --then you can add the SATA drivers after install.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Leppy]

alright ill give this a try, thanks

 

[Leppy]

I dont have anything in the BIOS that give me any options with the legacy sata drives or anything like that but i made a boot disk with the drivers but when i try to boot from the cd the computer sits there for a second and than just loads up windows, it doesnt load up the cd...

 

[PcBoyGeorge]

The drivers and win xp have to be on together.

 

[Leppy]

ya i know that, I added the drivers to the xp cd using nLite but when i try using the cd it doesnt work

 

[Spectralist]

It's been a long time since i installed XP... But from what i recall there's a point during install, while the screen is still largely blue, where it says on the bottom something like "Hit * Key if you need to install sata/raid drivers". I'm using the asterisk as a wildcard there, i don't remember what the actual key was, probably one of the F#s. Anyway try hitting that key and see where it gets you. The only time i had to use it i installed the sata drives through floppy... i don't know if it works from CD there as well, but probably.