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Solved: How to format a hard drive with Vista and install XP?

24K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  tezarin 
#1 ·
Hi all,

I recently bought an Inspiron 1405 which has Vista installed on it. I would like to uninstall vista and install xp. So I inserted the XP CD into the drive and changed the bios so that computer boots up from CD.

It boots up from XP CD and goes to the blue screen and starts
loading the necessary files to start the installation.

Then after done with loading, it shows that famous blue screen: "Windows has encountered an error message and has to shut down otherwise it will harm your computer. If this is your first time, restart your pc and if it's not your first time them you have some devices which are not compatible, disable things blah blah".... So I never get to that point where it asks me to format or repair windows...

And when I restart the computer, ir either boots up from the CD again and comes to the same screen or it shows that Windows Repair wizard.

Please let me know how I should fix this problem so I can install XP...

Thanks in advance
 
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#3 ·
Thanks but as I mentioned in my previous post, it boots up from the XP CD and then starts loading the files and JUST before it goes to that repair, format screen, partitions, it errors (one of those STOP 0x000000 numbers), so my question here how to fix this error so it lets me proceed with download...
 
#5 ·
Not sure mate, Never had that problem before. I did have an issue in where I installed Vista and then tried to re-install XP but the Bootup showed the Blue Screen and nothing happened after that.

I discovered that by holding the delete button after the Bios area that it booted from the CD and started loading the files. I was suprised at that but it did take me atleast 1hrs to figure that out.

I am not saying that this is what you must do but there must be an answer to the 000000's problem mate. Wish I could help.

Sean
 
#6 ·
Your XP install disc may not have the SATA drivers for your board. See this for help installing on SATA drives.

Or you can try this alternate for SATA . . Go into the bios and check the "sata operation" setting, change it to "Raid Autodetect/ATA if it is not already. Now try to install XP
 
#7 ·
Thanks for all your replies, specially simpswr, thanks to you for the great tip.

Last night I was able to remove Vista and install XP. Found out that the problem was the XP CD, it wasn't made by Dell! It's funny, but using a Dell XP solved my problem!
 
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