a.c.hoskins said:
I am trying to downgrade my Vista Ultimate OS to XP Pro using an
OEM disk I bought on the internet. I have had problems with Vista
since day one that have never been resolved and I cannot wait for 7
anymore (I need this computer up now). Anyway, I have a dell
Inspiron 530 (Service tag 3yp4yf1 - you can see the info about the
system configuration at the support.dell.com site if you enter the
service tag number.
After booting with the XP disk, it loads some drivers, says it is
starting windows and then I get a blue screen. The screen says:
---------------------------------------------------------
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down...
..
Check for viruses on you computer. Remove any newly installed hard
drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make
sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run Chkdsk /f to
check for hard drive corruption and then restart
Tech Info:
Stop:0x0000007B (0xf78d2524, 0xc0000034,0x0...,0x0...)
----------------------------------------------
I had hoped to completely reformat and repartition the drive
(actually it is a Raid (Raid 1 - mirror)), but it does not have a
virus for what it is worth (at least according to Zone Alarm).
Chkdsk found no problems. I cannot seem to get past this error.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks in advance.
Shenan said:
You need a floppy diskette, floppy diskette drive and the
controller driver for your system on the floppy then install
Windows XP, pressing F6 at the appropriate time to load the driver
Windows XP needs to install on that system as is.
Or go into your system BIOS and change the SATA operation to Legacy
(or the lowest level you can select) and install Windows XP just
like you did before.
a.c.hoskins said:
Thanks for the reply Shenan.
Unfortunately, this computer does not have a floppy drive, it was
not even an option when I ordered it from Dell. I have received
advice that I can get around this problem using an application
called nLite to build a bootable CD with the Intel Raid driver on
it. Have you heard of this application and do you have any opinion
on whether it would be a good way to go? If I do change the SATA
operation to the lowest level select, will it be possible to
recreate the Raid1 after I install XP? This computer was built by
Dell orginally so I have never done this before.
Thanks again for you response.
Just checking to see if you ignored the second option or just did not notice
it?
While you can integrate the driver into your CD - most aren't very
successful in this endeavor. Integrating service packs and patches - sure.
Integrating drivers - not as much.
Would seem to me that the second option I gave would work just fine,
although you would have to break the RAID I suppose (now that you have
mentioned the RAID level 1 you have) - although - to be quite honest - the
use of a RAID 1 just never did anything for me.
The only time I can see a RAID 1 working out is if a hard drive has instant
failure. Not damage leading up to failure, none of that - instant.
Otherwise - the damage that is done to the file system on the first drive is
just instantly copied (file - not the actual physical damage that may cause
it) to the other drive. So - something happens that corrupts some of your
system files and you have a hardware RAID 1 - it copies the corrupted files
to your other drive for you. You get a virus, copied to the other drive for
you. You erase all your important files and the likes - it is copied to the
other drive for you. Waste of a drive in my opinion. Of course - opinions
vary. Maybe someone out there who works on computer issues have seen more
drives completely die without warning than anything else that would happen
to a system and thus their opinion would be different from mine. ;-)
If it was me - I would break the RAID, use the drives as two drives and have
a C and a D - you have doubled your space and you will end up with a working
Windows XP machine that performs as well as it would (if not slightly
better) if you had the RAID 1 with Windows XP. Get an external hard disk
drive (I have seen 1TB external USB drives for less than $100 U.S.) and
schedule a periodic backup (or even just an xcopy/copy) to the drive of the
stuff that is important to you.
Then again - you could believe that the RAID 1 is of some benefit (have you
used it yet?) to you - in which case - yes - you can integrate the drivers
directly into the Windows installation media to get what you want instead of
getting a floppy diskette drive - that is a third option. nLite would
probably do it fine. Another option might be more manual:
http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/36/SESSID=8b0c51fd6eca712e465d2e6f79256fc8/
In any case - yep - slipstreaming is an option (especially if you want to
keep the RAID 1 setup you have or if you want to try a RAID 0 - probably the
only two the built-in controller supports and all you are going to do with
just two drives anyway) amongst the possibilities (four in total) that I
see.
My Windows Vista experience has been fantastic since SP2 - now getting to
that level - yeah - I can say that was not always so nice (even installing
SP2 in one case for a customer was a nightmare.) I should also point out
that I am already using Windows 7 RTM on one of my main systems and it has
gone without issue, although one other still has Windows Vista 32-bit w/SP2
and I have a VM that runs Windows XP - neither of those gives me trouble and
both are used as much as the Windows 7 is - one being a home system, the
other more for work/travel..
for you.