Windows XP wont boot

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Computer had Windows Vista installed but wont boot into vista. Was told by boss to install Windows Xp
and this is what happens.

This is the screen that the Windows XP installation is stuck at

Windows XP Professional Setup
To Setup Windows XP on the selected item press ENTER
To create a partiton in the unpartitioned space, press C.
To delete the selected partition press D

76317MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

Unknown Disk
There is no disk in this drive

Unknown Disk
There is no disk in this drive

Unknown Disk
There is no disk in this drive

Enter Install C Create partition F1 Quit

Notes i think i should reformat and repartition the hardrive and then tryin running window setup again except
the computer does not have a floppy disk can i make a bootable usb drive with fdisk and format on it.


This is a dell dimension c521

Professor Falken

 

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try slipstreaming the driver(for your storage controller) to your xp install via a program called nlite

 

yes sata hard drive

 

actually sorry about my last post as it maybe inaccurate as XP wouldn't detect the disk if it needed a driver

 

From what I believe you are saying is Vista wont load so your boss wants you to install XP is that right?

Then delete the current partition and reformat then see if you can install as normal.

I think XP is trying to install on top of vista and that is not a good idea.

 

the pc does not have a floppy drive so I cant use a startup disk with fdisk and format. Do you have any suggestions.

Thank you,

professor falken

 

You don't need a startup disk. Read the instructions on the screen; it's all there in front of you. Delete the partition by clicking D, create a partition by clicking C.

 

its like i said the computer freezes up at this point I am hoping that reformatting and repartitioning the drive will
prevent the freeze up what do you think.

professor falken

 

XP can't see some types of SATA.

Two possible answers: See if the BIOS can set the SATA to something like 'legacy'. This makes the SATA drive behave like IDE.

If you can't do that then you need a temporary floppy to make up a driver set from the motherboard CD, and use this floppy where it says something similar to 'Press F6 for additional drivers'.

Harry.

 

can i use a usb drive and copy the motherboard drivers to it.

 

No - as far as I know XP only looks at floppies! The alternate way is to slipstream the drivers onto a replacement CD.

Harry.

 

Is it possable that he needs the dell disk since it is a dell computer?

 

This is the correct solution.. grab a floppy drive from another computer, stick it in temporarily. Arm yourself with the SATA driver software that came with the MOBO.. then you can press F6 when asked for additional RAID drivers etc this happens early on on the install process.. this will force the XP installation to look on the floppy for storage device drivers.

Or, just install Vista, as i belive it has better support for SATA drives out of the box.

 

Well maybe. It depends how Dell packaged this particular product. If they didn't supply a proper Vista OS CD and Motherboard chipset drivers, and just supplied a restore CD with it all packaged together. That would make this whole excersise more complex.

 

also because it won't boot into anything or freezes up while trying to do something, could be a failing hdd or powersupply.

 

Yes well anything is possible, of course. Problem solving is a process of ilimination, and it's best to get the easy zero costs things iliminated first.

 

The problem is that the Dell shipped with Vista - and the Boss wants XP!

Harry.

 

And there are still plenty of Dell machines shipping with XP.

 

Well first of all you could try pressing F11 (or whatever dell has set) when it starts to boot up. Then you can go through the restore process to restore the vista installation to the original factory condition.

The other alternative is to ring dell and tell them that you want to downgrade to XP. Give them the serial number and they will send you the XP restore disks for that exact model pc. Then just boot from those disks and bob's your uncle.