how do I go back to WinXP Pro from vista

[acee]

I'm using my laptop at the moment and i'm getting a problem with trying to downgrade to winXP pro from vista business. It cant for some reason find my harddrive to download into... weird eh?? I believe its cause by vista and not my HD problem cuz I can run vista with no problem. Is there a way I can get through this? I hate vista and would like to go back to XP pro.

also I can boot winXP pro disc but it tells me that it cant find my hardrive and I have to cancel installation...i dunno what to do here... if anyone have solutions plz help.

Thanks

[0V3RC10CK3D]

You more than likely have a SATA harddrive and need to load the controller drivers. (F6 option at XP install startup)

What make and model is your laptop? You'll also need an external floppy drive for this to work.

[Killroy]

You probably have a sata hdd and need to load the drivers during the install or there is an option in the BIOS of some laptops to switch the operating mode of the hdd. I can't remember what the option is but I know my roommate had to change it when installing XP and not Vista.

[acee]

oh thanks i'll have to take a look at this.. well i dont have a external floppy drive :( uh but i'll try the option of going in my BIOS. And yes mine is sata HDD. Never knew I had to go through all this trouble..

[Lyquist]

I just had a laptop in for repair and I had to change a setting in the bios in order for XP to see the hard drive. I forgot what the setting is though...something about SATA Native Mode or something like that. Once I changed the setting, XP installed no problem.

[djnes]

You hate Vista so much that you blame it for your missing hard drive problem? Interesting.

Anyway, as others have said, you will probably need to load drivers, using either a floppy or something like nLite. If your laptop has an Intel chipset, it's probably just a BIOS setting. You can turn off AHCI and set the drives to Native or IDE mode.

[acee]

You hate Vista so much that you blame it for your missing hard drive problem? Interesting.

Yes.. i blame all on vista :P cuz i hate it | | this much! eh well the space suppose to be bigger... so imagine it to be about 1 meter