chaning from vista to xp pro in a laptop?

[carnageX]

Thanks for the responses, guys! I'm not a big tech guy and it seems like downgrading to XP pro is going to be a pain. I guess I'll just upgrade the ram to 2GB. The guy from Best Buy told me that the memory stick will cost $30 but will cost $40 to fit it! I've installed memory sticks in desktops before,...is it different in a laptop?

Thanks
Nev

LOL $40 to put it in for you? It'll take around a minute, and that's including unscrewing the RAM panel...I did it for a customer on our checkout counter one day for free, so we could make sure it booted up/displayed the correct amount of RAM. Took 5 minutes maximum...and that was cuz I had to go in our backroom to grab a small screwdriver xD.

Basically, just turn your laptop off like you normally do when installing desktop memory... Locate the panel that covers the RAM (should be labeled with either a pic or have the words "Memory" or somthin like that). Undscrew it, and just slide the RAM in horizontally, and make sure the metal clips go inside the notches (just like what you'd do with a desktop PC and its plastic latches). Close the panel, boot up.

 

[nev]

LOL $40 to put it in for you? It'll take around a minute, and that's including unscrewing the RAM panel...I did it for a customer on our checkout counter one day for free, so we could make sure it booted up/displayed the correct amount of RAM. Took 5 minutes maximum...and that was cuz I had to go in our backroom to grab a small screwdriver xD.

Basically, just turn your laptop off like you normally do when installing desktop memory... Locate the panel that covers the RAM (should be labeled with either a pic or have the words "Memory" or somthin like that). Undscrew it, and just slide the RAM in horizontally, and make sure the metal clips go inside the notches (just like what you'd do with a desktop PC and its plastic latches). Close the panel, boot up.

Sounds great!! Thank for the advice man! Kinda wierd when the cost of installation was higher than the item to be installed!

 

[carnageX]

No problem =).

 

[EricB]

I guess that that somebody (err hum... jayce) won't tell you how I help him get drivers.

go to driverpack.net. you can slipstrem the drivers onto an xp disc if you want to. it will have every driver except your modem.

back up your vista drive before you try this. hp has restore tools to make dvds. some manufacture aren't making xp drivers for their laptops, but the people who made the actual part did

here's how you update you xp cd to have almost all drivers. you need the driver packs and the driver base software. here are the links

DriverPacks.net > DriverPacks > Intro

DriverPacks.net > DriverPacks > DriverPacks BASE

download driverbase. put your downloaded driver packs files in the driver pack folder that you get when you extract driver base download with 7zip

7-Zip

extract driver base. put your driver zip files in the right folder.

open driver base. click the arrows to get to the next screen. notice that i have an xp folder on my desktop (I have 2 actually. I use ryanvm integrater to slipstream all of xp updates into the disc too). you need the files there as driver doesn't copy your xp cd files to the hdd. you have to manually do it yourself or use nlite to copy the files to the hdd

if you put the files in the right place you will see the drivers on this screen. just follow the steps leaving the default options. you can change them if you understand them.

when you are done use nlite to create a bootable iso file from the folder.

 

[KrYpToNiC]

Yea the best buy guys told me the same thing. I tried to install xp and it didnt recognize my hard drive. The compaq site has all the drivers for my laptop for xp but i cant get it to install.

 

[EricB]

Yea the best buy guys told me the same thing. I tried to install xp and it didnt recognize my hard drive. The compaq site has all the drivers for my laptop for xp but i cant get it to install.

since you seemed to missed this post, I will show it again. it contains all of the sata drivers needed to recognize the hdd

I guess that that somebody (err hum... jayce) won't tell you how I help him get drivers.

go to driverpack.net. you can slipstrem the drivers onto an xp disc if you want to. it will have every driver except your modem.

back up your vista drive before you try this. hp has restore tools to make dvds. some manufacture aren't making xp drivers for their laptops, but the people who made the actual part did

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

If it didn't recognize your hard drive, it's probably an SATA laptop. You'll need to find the drivers for your SATA controller and put them on a USB/FDD/CD and then when the Windows XP install asks about SATA drivers (pretty much the first thing it asks), have it read them. I've never personally dealt with SATA before (I like my IDE hard drives!) but that's pretty much how I think it's done.

 

[nev]

Ok I finally got all the drivers in their unextracted format. So now I'm going to install them and save em to a recovery disk and reformat the compter with xp pro and run the recovery disk. ....am i right so far?

 

[Apokalipse]

Ok I finally got all the drivers in their unextracted format. So now I'm going to install them and save em to a recovery disk and reformat the compter with xp pro and run the recovery disk. ....am i right so far?

you don't install XP drivers in Vista. wait until XP is installed, then install the XP drivers.

If you have a SATA hard drive, and don't have at least Service Pack 1 on the install CD, then you will probably have to slipstream a service pack (preferrably 2) onto a new install CD. Or you'll need to put the SATA drivers on a floppy disk, and load them during the install (press F6 during loading)