Windows Vista forum: downgrading from vista to xp

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.html?forumID=5&threadID=242435&messageID=2455982

In their case, Sony was no help. They used the forums to find Everest then Google and a driver site. You might check hp.com for drivers but I shouldn't have to write that...

Bob

How to install XP is documented on thousands of web sites so that can't be your question. Please take a moment and try rewriting the question.

1. Installing XP.

Thousands of web sites about that.

2. The drive issue.

Just went over that.

What's left?

Bob

You must feed the SATA driver to the XP installation program.

HP Pavilion dv6000t "Software & Driver downloads"
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?product=3224055&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&submit.y=0&submit.x=0&lang=en&cc=us

Click on "Microsoft Windows XP."
Scroll down to and click on "Intel SATA AHCI Controller Driver"
Follow the "Installation Instructions."

The link to the HP website does not help, HP does not supply the XP SATA drivers. (HP obviously has them, since school systems and businesses are downgrading to XP left and right, but they are unwilling to supply them to private individuals. I'm thinking about taking them to court and hanging them out to dry!)
Anyway, you need the SATA drivers for the HDD (Hard Disk Drive), or the drivers for the HDD controller, I'm not sure which, and I'm not even sure how to find out. My Laptop is am HP DV6000, Part Number: NB651AV. Does anyone have any ideas?

I get the same error as everyone else, "STOP 0X0000007B, INACCESABLE_BOOT_DEVICE." It does not say "Inaccesaable boot device" on my screen, only STOP 0X0000007B, and then some stuff about shutting down the computer to prevent damamge.

I would appriciate and info anyone would have on how to fix this, I have tried streaming the drivers onto an XP install CD with NLITE, but the same thing happens. I guess I have the wrong drivers? Does anybody know?

I have a Sony Vaio, im not sure about the actual model number. I tried to install windows xp from booting from the CD although it keeps saying that the hardrive is not visible or something stupid like that. I dont know what to do so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Yes, you need to read ALL of the posts in this long thread.. Although most refer to HP computers in this thread, many things still apply..

It may be SATA drivers if you're getting to the point where it asks for such during the XP installation...OR...you may need to disable the SATA/RAID Support in the BIOS for the hard drive to be recognized initially. In addition, have your tried WIPING the drive entirely before installing XP? It may be necessary in some cases.

By the way, BEFORE installing XP on your machine, be sure to get ALL of the drivers for the hardware.. Based on the posts in this forum, SONY computers have been the most difficult to find XP drivers for.

Hope this helps.

Grif

hi friends, can you help on my problem regarding downgrading vista to xp, by the way i have already downgrade vista to xp my problem is after i downgrade and install xp all the drivers that i download from hp and compaq are didnt work, my laptop model is compaq presario c700,
thanks

dude, i've got a solution for you.... dis aint a H/W problem...,dis system comes wid SATA Hard-drive, Vista has sata drivers as default (Vista has close to 19k native drivers but XP doesnt.,). Hence you actually need to get into BIOS/system set-up... guess for HP it ud be F10, and look for a option to disable SATA operation, once done boot from XP disc and that will recognise and install the same on it... do revert back for any issues...!!!

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I just successfully downgraded Vista Home to XP Home. You must disable the Harddrive native support setting, then you can go ahead and install. You must have the full copy version of XP.
The only other option I needed to select was to use the NFTS (quick) file system option during the install. This skipped the lengthy disk check function. Good luck!
HP provided the solution below -
1. Turn on the computer.
2. Keep tapping the F10 key when the Compaq logo appears. This will take you to BIOS Setup Utility.
3. Click on System Configuration tab
4.Under that select SATA Native support [ disable ]
5. Press F10 to "Save and Exit" the BIOS.
6. Click on Ok/Yes to confirm the changes.
7. Restart the computer.

The 'no hard drive found' error is circumvented by 'disabling' the Harddrive setting in the BIOS prior to the XP install (see my post). HP helped me through that, I never saw this suggestion before. btw, the machine is super fast running XP.

...They run slightly faster with "Native SATA Support" enabled... But you'll need to install the SATA drivers for that to occur.

As to the settings, that's a personal choice and leaving everything as default (as it's currently running) should work fine.

Hope this helps.

Grif

You have to use the driver on a floppy method.

-> That's in this discussion and on the web.

If you won't get an USB floppy drive and/or can't slipstream in the drivers for your sata then you won't be installing XP.

Bob

It's for your motherboard chipset. Again, this is either in this discussion or on the web. Be sure to grind your requests finely or people will tell you that no driver is needed for your SATA HDD and they'd be right.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=243153&start=75

There are more such posts out there. Sorry but given the depth of this discussion and answers are in here I won't duplicate such since it's all here.