Legit Reviews

i can't seem to get the XP PRO(desktop) install disk to work on my laptop, when it goes to the part where it should read the partitions on the HDD, it gives me a "cannot read from Hard Drive" error, i assume this is because it is an ATAPI HDD, and Desktop drives are IDE or SATA, should disks made for desktops work differently than ones for laptops?

Not unless your laptops using a non standard contoller. You didn't turn on Bit Locker in Vista did you?

what is bit locker?

skierkid450 wrote:what is bit locker?

Microsoft's encryption system for Vista and Windows 7 (Beta)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 05065.aspx

A buddy of mine tried to do this and it wouldn't work. The research he came up with said that xp wouldn't support the hardware for an install. Now my buddy is kind of a hack at some things so I'm not sure how much faith I would put in this. I figured I would let you know in case he was right, or it may give you a direction to look into. It may be something as simple as loading drivers before the install

Find the hard drive manufacturer's install software. Reformat the disk to NTFS and you shouldn't have a problem.

Major_A wrote:Find the hard drive manufacturer's install software. Reformat the disk to NTFS and you shouldn't have a problem.

Seconded. If you still run into problems after this, then likely you probably need to install ACHI drivers for XP when it asks for disk drivers.

Or... use nLite to slipstream the ACHI drivers into the install.

i think i'm too afraid that it will not take, as i don't have a Vista disk i'd be F'd if it doesn't work

Do you have an external hard drive? If so create an image of your drive with Vista on it and try XP. If all else fails just restore the image of the drive with Vista.

http://majorgeeks.com/XXCLONE_d5534.html