To Whom May Answer the All Knowing Questions...
I have two questions that I wish to pose to the many people here in this forum.
Laptop that I have that is in Question:
Hp Pavilion dv6920us
Intel Dual Core
3G Ram
250G HDD SATA
First Question:
I want to install XP Pro onto my computer. (Dual Boot)
Should be simple, but Microsoft has made it next to impossible.
I have read through countless forums and have tried many different things.
I have read that I needed to go find the driver for my hard drive, considering it is a SATA HDD and will not recognize the HDD when installing XP Pro. I went to HP's web site and found the HDD driver, put it on a floppy, attempted to install the driver, but then ended up with a "\i386\NTS\viamraid.sys caused an unexpected error(18) @ line 2108 in d:\xpclient\base\boot\setup\oemdisc.c" However, I have received such disc from my brother (burned copy) of XP Pro vs. 32 and I'm not sure if that was the issue.
One forum that I found gave me at least a starting point that allowed me to "shrink" my volume in Vista to create and format a partition for XP to run. It also gave a program to run once in XP so that I could have the boot option of booting back into Vista.
The following is the web site that I speak of:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/
Problem: couldn't connect to internet because the driver wasn't there.
So I did some more research and came across a forum that had many answers in ONE post. I can't find that post anymore, and I wish I could. It had many different places to get drivers and a program that allowed you to 're-create' an install disc to make it work without having to use the F6 option. After finding such post, and creating a new XP Pro vs. 32 CD, I did happen to get XP Pro loaded, but then proceeded to have issues with not having any of the drivers. I am not new to computers, but why would Microsoft sell a program that wouldn't install all of the drivers??
I was missing the following drivers:
Base System Device
Ethernet Controller
Network Controller
PCI Device
SM Bus Controller
USB Controller
Video Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)
So after going online and ordering my restore disc's so I could restore my laptop back to Vista because I was an idiot and forgot to create my restore disc BEFORE putting XP Pro vs. 32, I am back to square one. I do have an XP Pro vs.64 that is a TRUE Microsoft disc that I am thinking might work a little better - but I am not sure. Once again, I am stuck at looking for that web site/forum that had all the drivers needed.
So, basically here is my question.
Has anyone run across such a forum where there was just one post where it gave several different links to such drivers, AND had a program to create an OS disc without having to us F6??
If not, then could you help me find the SPECIFIC WORKING drivers for my laptop. Both for the SATA HDD as well as the "missing crap drivers" for XP to work correctly.
First Question (Part B):
A friend of mine has a Toshiba that she wants Vista off completely. She also has a SATA HDD installed. She wants XP back and I am willing to do this, but again, I just don't understand why Microsoft makes it so hard to do so. Again, I hate Vista with a passion.
Her laptop is as follows:
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4417
80G HDD SATA
512K RAM (*Upgrading the same time)
Vista Home Premium
Any help finding these specific drivers would be greatly appreciated.
Second Question:
I had an HP Pavilion dv2020us that had XP Home installed on it, until the motherboard decided to crash on me. Sent it into HP, took them two months to give me nothing and I finally called and asked where my laptoop was. After a few days, they decided to give me a new laptop (dv6920us) with Vista on it. I have my old 250G HDD that has XP on it. All I want to do is boot to this so I can get files off of it.
I have heard that you cannot boot an XP HDD from a Vista motherboard. I can't find many forums out there that answer this question.
I know that you just go into BIOS and choose to boot by USB, but I assure you, it worked once where it went into "Resuming Windows" and then shut down. After that, I have never got it to work again. I am able to look at the files through Vista's Search and what not, but I am looking to boot into it, to run an application that I am ONLY able to pull said files from it.
My brother has XP on his Desktop - which is a DELL, but I have been un-successful at booting from that as well. It claims to be missing a MRB or something like that to be able to boot into it.
So basically, is there a way to boot into this drive through Vista or do I have to go find someone with an XP base in order to get into my program?
Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again in advance.
Sincerely,
Christopher
