Resolved Vista HP vs. my XP install... FIGHT!

Hello everyone. While I know a little bit about computers (i.e. how to slave one hard drive to another and I did manage to replace a heat sink and keyboard assembly in my current/old HP Pavilion zd7000 laptop) but laptops, for the most part, are a little intimidating to me and this software dilemma has me completely vexed. I appreciate the help and advice.

Much like giving a report to a detective, I’ll try to include as much detail as possible up front.

I purchased a HP dv7-2000 laptop computer from HP. The laptop has 2 separate Hard drives (250GB x2) instead of one 500 GB drive. The Vista one is C: and the extra "Data" one is labeled D:.

Here is a screen capture of my HDD properties screen;



While I was ordering it, I told the woman on the phone that I had some expensive productivity programs that I needed to be able to run and if Vista didn’t play nice with them, I was prepared to replace Vista with XP. As "luck" would have it, I ordered the laptop the first day HP was offering free upgrades to Windows 7 when you purchase computers with a "qualifying" version of Vista. She gave me a 64 bit Vista Home Premium OS but told me the entire time that the processor and other components would work with my 32-bit version XP.

The woman on the phone said if I needed to, I would be able to install XP on the secondary drive and adjust the BIOS to make the secondary drive the boot drive. With that understanding, she and I selected components she said would all work with XP.

This is the XP disc I purchased from Amazon and am attempting to use:

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Win..._1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1247194160&sr=8-1

I first turn on my new laptop and complete the HP setup process and then create my System Restore Discs for the Vista OS.

I then restart my computer and enter the BIOS menu.


I navigate the menus as shown in the images below. There is no option that I can find to either disable one HDD or to assign a priority order to one HDD over another. (ie: "change the letter" of the Vista drive from C: to some other letter)

The screenshots below detail my setting the CD/DVD drive as the priority boot device in the BIOS and my attempt to boot XP from the disc.









Well, that doesn't work. Since I intend the destination drive to be a separate drive from the Vista drive, I try inserting the disc while running Vista and hope I can just select the D: drive during the process.

If I insert the XP disc while Vista is running, XP is cockblocked completely. Vista will not let the installation run long enough for me to select a destination for the install and implies that I will need to delete Vista completely. Since I want to upgrade to Windows 7 for free as offered by HP, I obviously do not want to erase Vista.

Why am I getting the blue screen of death while trying to boot from the disc?

I have been looking around on other sites and all the "dual boot" options explain creating a partition which also corrupts the bootability of the Vista install. Since I have an entirely separate hard drive inside the laptop chassis, I obviously want to use the D: drive as the home for Windows XP. It’s the only reason I bought the laptop configured this way.


I am truly confused.


If it is some sort of driver problem, I did manage to find the XP drivers page for my HP "CTO" laptop here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3884608

I’m not sure what to do with these drivers in order to avoid the install error as pictured above when trying to boot from the disc.

I look forward to any help you power users can offer and I hope I can put this problem behind me in the near future.

 

Thank you for the prompt reply. However, I cannot get to the Windows XP Pro setup screen as pictured on the page you linked to. Please check out the links to the pictures I posted.

I have been doing some searching and many sites say to disable a SATA Native mode. I do not have this choice in my BIOS. Apparantly HP Vista laptops do not allow for this option. The workaround I've been hearing about something called "Slipstreaming" and I'm in the process of looking for as many XP drivers for my components as I can. The HDDs are made by Seagate and their site says that they run with the most basic pre-installed drivers and no additional driver support is provided.

The separate drive I am trying to install to is (by default) already labeled D: as recommended by the page you sent me to. Is there something I need to do to D: while in Vista that would make it play nice? Due to the fact that I cannot seem to get Windows to boot from the disc, I'm thinking its some sort of driver problem... but I am not an expert. Please advise.

 

Thank you for the reply. If I were somehow able to get my BIOS screenshots display in my post, rather than just as links, you would see the captions typed directly onto the .jpegs and how I basically detail my navigation through the BIOS to try and boot from the disc.

 

Thank you for reading my entire post and checking out my screenshots before responding. I did purchase the "HP Total Care" plan for my laptop, so I would love to "just have THEM sort it out." However, I anticipate a heavy indian accented voice saying "HP recommends only using Windows Vista. Installing XP will void your (rather expensive) Total Care coverage." and not getting any help at all. I will try the link you sent me and post my results sometime in the next 24-48 hours. Stay tuned.

 

Ok. The HP people were not willing to give me drivers or any support for XP with this Pavillion dv7-2000 notebook. However, since I was within the 14 day period, they were happy to take it back for a full refund.

Also, this seems to be HP's dirty little secret... they still sell notebooks with XP. HOWEVER, you need to buy them from this website:

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/home.asp?oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=

Its called the Small & Medium Business Store. You might not be able to get the same kind of special discounts and deals, but the stuff has more current specs than buying a preassembled notebook from a place like notebookshop.com (which has SOME XP notebooks with specs from 12+ months ago) and this HP "business" stuff guaranteed to work as an XP machine. For example, an equivalent "small & medium business" notebook to the dv7-2000 I am returning (Which cost me $1600.00) will now cost me nearly 3 grand. The major price difference is the graphics card which is not a 1GB ATI but rather a 1GB NVIDIA 2700 which is an additional $400 over their standard 512 card. The HP small & medium business store's case selection is rather slim and there is only one case that has a 17 inch screen. All others are 15 inches or less.

Anyhow, I threw in the towel on this one but the good news is I can still get a pimped out XP machine.