New Dell XPS M1330 - Changing Vista to XP Pro.

[snowsurfer]

Hello,

I received my Dell XPS M1330 this Monday (2.4 GHz Core Duo, 3 Gb RAM, LED backlit screen), and spent some time this week migrating my Outlook, installing the basic stuff. I was amazed at the speed, quiet operation, etc., of the system. Suddenly this morning, when I restart, the OS freezes when loading the resident programs, I can run safe mode, which I did, used system restore, but I get the same problem when I restart (when the last programs are loading the circle pointer keeps turning, I can't switch apps, not even CTRL+ALT+DEL. I don't see this as a hardware problem, and I hate Vista anyway, so I've been thinking to change to XP. I've seen that Dell provides the full set of drivers and apps for XP for this computer, but what I am wondering is whether I will run into problems with the SATA driver. On desktops it is usually installed from a floppy. So, the question is, how should I prepare the SATA driver for installing XP after a format of the system drive.

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[KSoD]

Yes you will run into issue with the SATA Driver. XP does not have them on their discs. So you will need to either slipstream them or use the 3rd party installer from floppy.

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-keep-winxp-really-fast-stable-156582/

Read that topic there for how to get XP up to date with drivers.

 

[KurrentEweser]

I had no driver problems putting XP on my Dell XPS m1710. XP installs using the bios level drivers. There's no need to press F6. I keep all the latest Dell Vista and XP drivers in a folder on a different partition than the install partition. So I have the drivers available no matter what OS I install.

 

[snowsurfer]

I just ran the diagnostics utility, and I'm afraid it is a hardware problem after all:

Hard Drive - DST Short Test (Result: Fail)
Error Code 0142
MSG: ERROR CODE 2000 - 0142
MSG: UNIT 1: DRIVE SELF TEST FAILED.
STATUS BYTE = 79

....

 

[KurrentEweser]

It's a Seagate OEM drive I bet.

 

[snowsurfer]

I'm not sure, I think it is. It's a 250 Gb model. Back to Dell it goes I suppose.

EDIT: Nope, it's a Western Digital. (WD-WXC308770099)

 

[KurrentEweser]

Western Digital's are no better I see. I'm sticking with Hitachi. My Seagate gave me blue screens when it got hot.