Installing XP in Place of Vista on a New HP Laptop...

Hello, I searched the FAQ for this question... I have a HP AMD 2 64 Laptop with a 32 bit Vista... Can I safely install a 32 bit XP Pro in its place...
The drive has a second partition called HP Recovery which is like 11 gigs and when I try to access it it says the partition is empty...
Thank you Andy1...

 

Vista and the Machine

You should not have a problem loading XP if the system was designed for a 32 bit OS. the issue your going to have (very similar to my vista OEM toshiba) is to find the XP drivers. It took me hours searching through threads to find a gal who had all of them. good luck geting any assistance with downgrading. and that recovery partition may only have vista on it anyway.

The takaway is to find the drivers first. and be careful... an incorrect MB/Bios Flash can cause irreputible damage to you hardware.

good luck

 

Thank You, Davukii... Andy1........

 

The recovery partiton holds all the information with which you can restore the original installed OS, programs and drivers. Before you start installing XP on that notebook, be sure to create a set of recovery cd's/dvd's, incase you'll find that not all drivers for XP are available and the notebook is unstable. You will not be able to use the recoverypartition after you install XP on the notebook! See this link for information on how to create the recovery cd/dvd's.
Further, since all newer PC's and noteboos have sATA HDD's in them, you'll need to load the sATA drivers separatly, slipstream them into your XP CD with nLite or disable the sATA native support in the BIOS (if available). This last option will make the sATA drives act like IDE drives, so no extra drivers will be needed. You lose a little bit in performance, but I find it is hardly noticable.
When checking for drivers for Windows XP, always check if the type of notebook you have also comes as a CTO model at the HP site. Those usualy have the most driver listed with them. If you need help finding driver just let me know and I'll be glad to help. Just make sure to provide me with the productnumber (P/N on the servicelabel on the bottom of the notebook) so I know what exact model we're talking about.

 

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Hi and thanks Martijn, what I've done since the last post is I've taken yours and Davukii advice to heart and I went and ordered Acronis 11 to backup the
system totally to DVD... I hope it is as good as its advertised... My friend who I'm doing this for said it was ok if I got rid of Vista permanantely but I feel that he is not aware what a system without drivers is...
Either way when I do it I'll let you guys know the out come, thanks again Andy1.....

 

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Hi Maritjn & Davukii, I been doing this super slow because when I rush into things and not knowing what I'm doing I tend to SC_*- thing up...
Anyway I went and bought Acronis 11 and since my friend is not interested in keeping anything related to Vista I thought I would take you guys advice and copy the recovery partition so I would have all of the drivers if necessary...
The thing is since the recovery partition is a logical drive do I select create disc image or just file and documents???
I've asked this from other people and no one seems to know so any help would be appreciated... Thank you Andy1...

 

Hi Andy1,

you should really make him recovery disc with the recovery disc creator that gets installed with Vista. That way, if anything goes wrong and it might be a hardware issue, you can restore the notebook back to factorysettings. HP support will most likely ask you to do the same before they can send the notebook in for repairs if needed. You could offcourse also use Acronis to make an image of the factory-installed OS, that would be about the same.

 

Martijn, thank you, thank you!!!
Now for the dumb question, How do I navigate to the create recovery disc in Vista???
I would like to think I would know but this is a whole new animal... I've been navigating over this interface and Office 2007 and wow, I think that the teachers are going to take tutorials... Its easy to use but technically looking for something, haven't a clue...
I think XP is going to be around for a long time... Anyway thank you for the advice and in advance if you can give me that info... Andy1...

 

While I prefer Vista to XP, if you are intent on installing XP, be sure to disable SATA in the BIOS or you will get a drive not recognized error.

 

Hey thanks for the input AKAJohnDoe, but this laptop is an AMD 64 with a 32 bit OS and Pata, no Sata...
By the way do you know how I would navigate to Create Recovery Disc in Vista??? It already has a logical partition with its own drive letter and would I have to create a disc image for it???
Thanks Andy1...

 

Making a set is pretty easy, just follow the steps on this website. Make sure to use +R discs, Rewritables aren't accepted by the Recover manager.

 

Well here's the update... Presently I am installing the XP OS... I had to decide in advance what could go wrong with the new installation and and not having a lot of experience with Vista the only thing that I could figure out is that Vista could come back to haunt me through XP... So I was able to make three recovery discs without 3rd party software, and then I wiped the hard drive clean with a Linux disc making about 7 passes, took about 4 hours...
When I booted up all that came up on the screen was no operating system found...
By the way the link that was provided by Martijn was a big help and I do want to thank everyone for their advice and I will keep everyone posted on the outcome, Thank you everyone, Andy1 ...

 

Guess what??? After I had XP all loaded with all the extra software for my friend I went to the internet and I can not connect... I tried every which way for about an hour and then I went to my ISP and got some support for troubling shooting my problem... Well it was like Martijn said "no drivers for the network card "... I tried to to use the recovery discs from the Vista that I created but nothing... So in desperation I called HP support and what an hour, they finally told me that the hardware for Vista is only for Vista... That some of the hardware and the drivers are made only for Vista and that if my friend had wanted XP he sould have told them before the purchase so they would have provided him with an XP machine... Well I don't know how much of that is true but they are sending out a Vista disc operating system for $30... Later Andy1...

 

, OK, guess what??? You guys were right, but I did heed you folks advice after the recovery disc arrived I got to thinking that if guys could do it and were giving advice I just had to try a little harder... I finally did it, I got XP up and started looking for drivers and I was able to install them... One though thing that I found out is that some of this hardware is only made for Vista...
But when I hooked the ethernet cable XP went out into the internet like a hungry bear after hibernation, now the real hard part is looking for free games
for my friend, not cause they would be hard to come by but I'm not familiar with games and gaming or the gaming world...
Thank you Martijn, Davukii and AKAJohn Doe, Andy1........

 

Before changing OS's, always download all your drivers for the new OS.

 

Brimis, I didn't know and I thought that was what these forums were for... Thanks to Martijn and Davukii and their advice I was able to start it and get back on track...

 

It's good to look around if a certain model has enough drivers available for another OS then the standard one, but you can never be sure a certain driver revision works for your specific model. Conexant is a terrible one find an XP driver for for example.

 

Hi There Martijn, What is Conextant??? What is place in XP???
Andy1...

 

Conexant makes audiochips, like Realtek. Only their drivers pretty much ****.

 

Well Martijn, I shouldn't have asked, I just found out or found out last week...
I got everything in except I don't have any SOUND!!! I have installed drivers and uninstalled drivers, same ones by the way, for a week and the rescue disc that I got from HP is one the same as I backed up myself and I have even used it to no avail... By the the Conextant drivers went in with no problem, what the machine says is that the CD Rom is missing, when I run the (updat drivers) it states that I have successfully updated the machine to reboot... After I reboot I go to the Device Manager and its got those yellow thingis under the CD Rom...
and I start again...
If you have any ideas let me know even by PM... Andy1...