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Installing XP over Vista.


thealexweb

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I recently bought a new Inspiron 1721 from Dell, it had Vista Home Premium included but I'm just so annoyed by its slowness, programme incompatibility, and resource hog.

So I want to install XP, I have a Dell Windows XP Professional disk. The laptop has two hard drives that are shown as one in Vista due to raid. Could I just bung my disk in and install XP by formatting my hard drive. In the windows setup will it still show as only having one hard disk. Could I even install it in the first place? Please someone answer.

Edited by thealexweb
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I've never used a laptop with a RAID setup, so I may not help you with this issue, but if you plan to install fresh Windows XP installation, here's what you should do...(at least that's the case with PC's, not sure if it applies on laptops with RAID as well.

Aquire the WinXP RAID drivers for your laptop from manufacturers web site (you'll need an external USB floppy unit, so you can install those drivers during the first stage of Windows installation. You'll have to press F6 when needed.

I know that IBM laptops have a hidden partition that can be only deleted with some third party tools like Partition Manager. These hidden partitions holds Windows pre-install that you got licenced when buying laptop.

If that's the case with Dell too, you will install new OS (WinXP) and you'll still have that hidden partition if you later decide to try Vista again..

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  • 6 months later...

I've searched really long and really hard to find a soluation to this problem. The good news is THERE ARE REAL, WORKING drivers for the AHCI SATA RAID controller in the Inspiron 1721. And here they are, from IBM:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-68363.html

(oops, fixed the link now!)

It includes the Textmode driver which you can streamline with nLite into an XP install disc. Everything works perfectly

If you have trouble creating your own install .iso using nLite or something similar, there is now a torrent available (if you look for it you should find it) with a ready-built XP SP3 image for the 1721, just use your existing license key if you install it.

Edited by gaspoes
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  • 6 months later...
I've searched really long and really hard to find a soluation to this problem. The good news is THERE ARE REAL, WORKING drivers for the AHCI SATA RAID controller in the Inspiron 1721. And here they are, from IBM:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-68363.html

(oops, fixed the link now!)

It includes the Textmode driver which you can streamline with nLite into an XP install disc. Everything works perfectly

If you have trouble creating your own install .iso using nLite or something similar, there is now a torrent available (if you look for it you should find it) with a ready-built XP SP3 image for the 1721, just use your existing license key if you install it.

Wow thanks, sorry it took me so long to reply.

Edit: I've followed your advice but decided to use nLite to compile my own iso, no chance of nasty viruses then. I integrated the driver and SP3 and I am currently testing it in Virtual Box.

Edited by thealexweb
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