Change OS

[Lee524]

I have a laptop w/ Vista Home Basic and would like to change the OS to XP Pro. I have a new XP Pro to load. Any tips on how to do this?

Thanks.

Thanks for the replies. No luck. When I boot from the XP cd, the install process starts, but when I get to "window is starting", I get the blue screen saying "a problem has been detected and windows is shutting down........."

Any way past this problem?

Thanks.

[CLiNT]

1 Make certain you are able to obtain all the drivers from the laptop's manufacturer for Windows XP prior to starting.
2 The hard drive must be formatted, no install can be done while Vista is in place. The genuine Windows XP disk should alow you
to format the drive by booting to the XP CD, if not a simple dos bootable CD will do the trick.

Windows Secrets: Downgrade Vista to XP in seven easy steps By Scott Dunn

[ranger72]

Hi There Lee524 I looked around a bit here in the forums for a tutorial suitable for your needs with no luck. You should back up all your important data such as documents,images, music and videos and once that is done then I re-format the hard drive which will wipe it clean then do a clean install of win xp pro. Here is a link to a google search I did "Format Hard Drive and install Win Xp Pro" http://www.google.com/search?q=forma...ient=firefox-a You shouldn't have any problem running win xp pro on a system that came with Vista Home Premium. Is your computer relatively old or relatively new? Grab yourself a cup of coffee and sit down for a good read at the links on the google link I provided and then come back with any questions you may have. Can you provide us with your computers make and model and your system specs so we can get an idea of what your hardware is? Thanks, ranger72

[Medico]

Lee, welcome to the Lounge as a new poster.

You will have to boot to the XP Pro disk and install from there. During the installation you will have to format the HD prior o the installation of XP. PCMag offered an article on methods you can use.

I will not offer an opinion one way or the other on installaing backward in versions, since I use Win 7 Ultimate.

[ranger72]

1 Make certain you are able to obtain all the drivers from the laptop's manufacturer for Windows XP prior to starting. 2 The hard drive must be formatted, no install can be done while Vista is in place. The genuine Windows XP disk should alow you to format the drive by booting to the XP CD, if not a simple dos bootable CD will do the trick. Windows Secrets: Downgrade Vista to XP in seven easy steps By Scott Dunn

As it turns out there is tute provided by the moderator Clint I beg your pardon Clint; new here not entirely familiar with your site outside of the forum. Have been receiving your newsletter for quite some time and have been lurking the forum. regards, ranger72

[CLiNT]

Welcome

[Medico]

This thread has an extensive discussion on XP versus Vista. Take a look.

[Lee524]

Thanks, Clint. No luck. When I boot from the XP cd, the install process starts, but when I get to "window is starting", I get the blue screen saying "a problem has been detected and windows is shutting down........."

Any way past this problem?

Thanks.

[Infinicore]

What SP level is the XP cd you are using to try and install from? Older versions (SP1 and no original) will almost always blue screen since there is hardware they detect and instantly cannot understand (like PCIe graphics). That may or may not include SP2 now as well. I haven't run into anything but that doesn't mean there's not something now that confuses it as well.

Also if you are using XP SP3 and you have SATA controllers, you need to either install those at the press F6 step in the installation or integrate the ones for your system into the XP SP3 disc or be able to change your SATA controller to IDE mode emulation in the BIOS.

Don't know if that's discussed in the articles or not but just in case they explain the process but not the initial speed bump.

[Lee524]

Thanks for the replies. No luck. When I boot from the XP cd, the install process starts, but when I get to "window is starting", I get the blue screen saying "a problem has been detected and windows is shutting down........."

Any way past this problem?

Thanks.

Thanks for the replies. No luck. When I boot from the XP cd, the install process starts, but when I get to "window is starting", I get the blue screen saying "a problem has been detected and windows is shutting down........."

Any way past this problem?

Thanks.

[Lee524]

It is XP Pro SP3, No luck getting past the "windows is starting" in the install process.

[Just Plain Fred]

I have a laptop w/ Vista Home Basic and would like to change the OS to XP Pro. I have a new XP Pro to load. Any tips on how to do this?


Any way past this problem?

Lee,
Hello... A few weeks ago i did something similar (install XP-Pro SP-3) I purchased a XP-Pro disk and did the following.(short version).

1. Did a backup (Macrium Reflect Free) of my Vista HD (i multi boot) and stored the image off the original HD (another internal HD )

2. Formatted the HD (NTFS) and divided into two partitions.

3. Ran the XP disk and installed it on the first partition. Disk 0 partition 1

4. Booted XP up and installed EasyBCD 2.1, and Macrium Reflect (Both Free)

5. Ran Macrium from the XP OS, and Installed (recovered from Image) Vista on the 2nd partition.

6. Ran EasyBCD and set Vista in the booting Que ( your choice as to which is your default ) Now when you boot ..you get a choice.

7. If you decide that you later no longer want the Vista OS, (dual boot)... Just use "Disk Management" to delete the Vista partition and recapture the space to your XP OS.

Post back if you need more "info" Regards Fred

PS: you should have at least 3GB of RAM to let XP (or Vista) really run...

[Medico]

See if this support article from MS helps with you dilemma.

[Browni]

Hi Lee,

Sounds like you are getting a blue screen of death in the install process.

Can you supply further details from that screen, in particular the stop code & any other numbers listed, also the name of any driver if it is listed.

One final thought, is the laptop still functioning with the existing operating system?

[Lee524]

Thanks for your reply. How do you do step #2, format the hard drive?