How do i replace the Vista O/S with XP?The answers given so far leads to a screen showin harddisk not detected

Have tried to run the XP bootable CD but once you Enter to move to the agreement stage, it gices some information that the harddisk is not powered on or can not be recognized.Thought of the difference with FAT and NTFS files and tried to start with 98 os but it failedHow do i replace the Vista O/S with XP?The answers given so far leads to a screen showin harddisk not detected
Is your computer perhaps a branded computer? Particularly a Toshiba or HP laptop etc?



Many of these manufacturers no longer support XP at all on their hardware.



I doubt the disc you are using has drivers to detect the harddrive in your system. You may need to install 3rd party drivers before the setup screen prompts you with ';Press F8 to Accept';. The drivers will be available from your manufacturers website.How do i replace the Vista O/S with XP?The answers given so far leads to a screen showin harddisk not detected
it sounds like you need to load a sata or raid controller driver before XP will see your hard drive.



you will need to get this from the manufacturers website and put it on a floppy disk. once you boot to the XP CD you will see on the bottom it will say something like Press F6 to load third party drivers.



Press F6 and after a minute it will ask you to load the driver.
Ummm you are in some trouble my friend. My guess is that your brand new computer has the more advanced AHCI drive controller on the motherboard. Windows XP can have this driver loaded but of course you can't install the operating system to install this driver. So you have two options:



1) Go into the BIOS and see if it's possible to set the Hard Drive controller back to IDE mode (small system slow down)



2) Produce your own windows CD with the AHCI drivers 'slipstreamed' into it. This is not for the feint of heart but I did it and won. The link below should show you some useful information on doing this.



Regards, teef_au