problems installing XP on HP Pavilion w/ Vista Ultimate

  • Thread starter Thread starter dastrick
  • Start date Start date
dastrick

dastrick

huh???
Yes, I know this is a recording forum. I'm doing my research, but thought that maybe someone here might be able to help me out.

I'm trying to install Windows XP Pro SP2 on an HP Pavilion which already has Vista Ultimate 64. I want a dual boot system. Here's what I did:

-did a full system backup of Vista to an external drive
-made a 10 GB partition on my hard drive for XP
-put my XP cd in the cd drive and booted from the cd to install XP

The XP setup starts doing its thing and installs the drivers/files. Then I get the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. WINDOWS HAS ENCOUNTERED A FATAL ERROR......
I never get the chance to select which partition I want to install Windows. I tried this three times and the same thing happens every time. I read somewhere that XP doesn't recognize SATAII hard drives. I don't know if my hard drive is SATAII or if that's even true.

Help...Please...
 
You cannot install XP on top of Vista, even if you want to do dual-boot. You need to wipe your drive, install XP, create a second partition, then install Vista in that second partition.
 
ok. here's a question for you.

Can I change Vista 64 to Vista 32 without formatting the hdd & installing Vista 32?
 
Noisewreck is right, although you can set up a duel boot, you are doing it in the wrong order. There is plenty of info on the web about how to do it.

As for your XP crash problem: you already have the right idea. You need to go into the BIOS setting of your HP and change a setting under SATA. It is probably set by default to "AHCI Mode"; you need to change this to "IDE mode". This is just a label, you are not telling your computer that you have an IDE drive. AHCI stands for Advance Host Controller Interface; this is a newer standard that Windows XP doesnt know about. About the only thing you will lose by making this change is the ability to hot-swap a SATA drive, something very few people do anyway.
 
I read that it's best to install Vista over XP, but my HP already had Vista installed. I'm trying to keep from wiping the hdd clean because I don't have a Vista install disk.
 
That's a common problem, since most cheap-ass companies these days try to save a few pennies by not including the media with the laptop. It also eliminates the chance of the home user trying to install the OS on a different computer.

Some laptops have an option to create a set of "recovery" CDs. Check and see if yours is one of those.

The only other thing I could suggest is to use a program like Symantec Ghost to back up your hard drive. Make sure to back it up as a "partition", NOT as "entire disk". Then you can re-format and partition the drive into 2 sections. Also the program Partition Magic is useful for setting up multi-boot partitions.
 
dastrick said:
I read that it's best to install Vista over XP, but my HP already had Vista installed. I'm trying to keep from wiping the hdd clean because I don't have a Vista install disk.
Click to expand...
First, it's not "best to install Vista over XP", it's simply the ONLY possible way. You cannot install XP over Vista, ain't gonna work, Microsoft makes sure of that.

As for wiping the HDD. Your HP computer must've come with a software that allows you to create recovery disks. I've purchased HP Pavillions in the past and they all do. Just be prepared to use a lot of CDs or DVDs, depending on the case. Last time I did was for an HP machine and I think it used like 11 or 12 CDs.

Good luck!
 
So if I make the recovery disks, I'll be able to install Vista after installing XP?

Thanks for your help, btw. :)
 
You've gotten some good advice here. You need to install XP, then Vista, in that order to have the dual-boot config screen work properly. Vista includes an updated boot config program that is programmed to recognize the presence of XP, and to then set things up correctly to allow a dual-boot scenario. If you install XP last, of course it's boot loader program does not know to accommodate the presence of Vista (how could it?), so it overwrites Vista's newer boot config program with it's own outdated one. And chaos ensues.

Also, a 10 GB partition for XP may be a tad small, especially after the SP2 and SP3 Service Packs get added on there. I'd advise at least 20-25 GB instead.
 
The other thing you might like to consider is simply to install XP and forget about Vista. Do you need both?
 
If it was my computer, I would dump Vista and use XP. But, it's the computer at the church that we use for our visuals on the screens. We had a problem with our program freezing up and doing other crazy stuff, so I was going to use it on XP because we didn't have that problem on our old system. However, I've since discovered that the software manufacturer has an update for Vista 64. I'm going try it. Hopefully it works. If not, I'm back to going to XP.
 
Doowah said:
Also, a 10 GB partition for XP may be a tad small, especially after the SP2 and SP3 Service Packs get added on there. I'd advise at least 20-25 GB instead.
Click to expand...
That is a very good point.
 
dastrick said:
ok. here's a question for you.

Can I change Vista 64 to Vista 32 without formatting the hdd & installing Vista 32?
Click to expand...

The only OS you can install on vista 64 with out reformating is
Win7 64 period. I'm not a fan of Vista but Win7 I must admit seems
to be a step in the right direction.

BTW you can pick up family packs with 3 win7 license for $150.

Randy
 
To add to what Randy says, you cannot go from 32 bit OS to 64 bit OS or vice versa w/o reformatting the drive, unfortunately. This is due to the difference in memory addressing scheme used by the two different environments.
 
explain to me why you would be unable to install xp on top of a pre installed vista, that makes no sense to me.

The only problem I could see would be with the boot loader, and there are a variety of ways to either restore the vista boot loader after xp was installed or install a non ms boot loader capable of recognising vista or xp eg. grub or lilo, asides from that I would think all you would need to do would be to shrink the existing vista partition (which could be done in vista) and then install xp on the newly emptied space, and then correct the boot loader issue.
 
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