64 bit to 32 bit?

[Trotter]

A buddy of mine has XP Pro 64 bit, but is tired of all of the hassles of trying to find drivers. He's not interested in going to Vista, but I was wondering... would a repair installation of XP pro 32 bit work? or would it require a format?

I don't need conjecture on this one, just an answer.

 

[Apokalipse]

no, it won't work. He'll need to do a full install.

Though he could try using nlite to integrate drivers into an XP x64 CD
I do that every time I reinstall (inlcuding post-SP2 updates)

 

[EricB]

what drivers are he looking for? what motherboard do he has? I love xp 64 speed but I killed 2 usb harddrive using the copy and paste feature so I don't mess with it anymore

 

[Apokalipse]

copying to USB drives shouldn't really be different on XP x64.
The only thing I can think of is maybe the delayed write feature was configured differently

 

[EricB]

I've gotten a delay write on both and they never worked again. the second drive I unplugged 5 minute after it was done copying and pasting

 

[Apokalipse]

I've gotten a delay write on both and they never worked again. the second drive I unplugged 5 minute after it was done copying and pasting

delayed write can be disabled.
Did you try seeing if you could reformat them?

 

[EricB]

I took them out of their cases and tried to reformat them because I've fix a few usb drives that way. these drives were dead and one of them was my favorite drive

 

[Trotter]

He wasn't specific about any drivers, just in general.

Oh well... it was worth asking.

 

[EricB]

He wasn't specific about any drivers, just in general.

Oh well... it was worth asking.

A repair won't fix the 64 bit drivers issues, but you can sometime install 32 bit driver if you go the device manager way.

I'm kinda good on finding drivers too.

 

[Trotter]

I have no doubt about that, Eric. You are an all-around miracle worker.