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shadowcoder
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December 10th, 2007 21:00
Installing XP Pro
I recently got a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop as an early Christmas present. I wanted to use the new computer for gaming, but several of my favorite games are not yet Vista compatible (mainly the Hitman Trilogy), and I am studying software programming in school, which is done on XP. I resized the default Backup partition on the system to 60GB and reformatted it as my target for XP, however when I attempt to boot the Windows XP Professional installation CD, I get the blue screen of death telling me that an error has occurred with the system file pci.sys. Does anyone know a way that I can get XP installed or what it is that I'm doing wrong? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. The system has an Intel Core 2 Duo T525 1.5GHz processor and 2GB of RAM.
Message Edited by shadowcoder on 12-10-2007 05:52 PM
Message Edited by shadowcoder on 12-10-2007 05:52 PM
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Posted December 11th, 2007 02:00
Why was there a need to resize the recovery partition?120
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Posted December 11th, 2007 02:00
Alright, I tried resizing the C drive, and I got exactly the same error when I went to install XP, the system encountered and error and windows had to be shut down, etc, with pci.sys being where the error originated again.
I had resized the recovery partition because I had intended to use that for XP since I have no need for it.120
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Posted December 11th, 2007 02:00
That's basically what I did. The system came with a 10GB partition labeled "Back Up" formatted with NTFS and used by one of the pre-installed programs to save data, so what I did was shrink the C drive and increase the D drive. I'll have to try a few things with the BIOS tomorrow to see if I can get it to disable some settings before booting.120
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Posted December 11th, 2007 02:00
No. Leave d in its original size or maybe smaller if you are not concerned about recovery. Decrease c and use unallocated space to make another partition. Use this new partition for XP120
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Posted December 11th, 2007 04:00
I'll bet you're using a CD that has either XP or XP with Service Pack 1 on it. You'll need to create a slip-streamed CD with XP from your original CD and SP2 downloaded (free) from Microsoft. Read this: http://snipurl.com/1v327
If that's what's happening, I'll also bet the XP CD was 'borrowed' from another system. So what you're about to do is not legal. You also may be unable to activate the installation and/or Microsoft won't let you download all the XP updates because the key has already been registered.
BTW: Doesn't Vista have a "compatibility mode" that allows you to run software written for XP? XP has this feature and software as old as Win95 usually (not always) will run ok. At least in XP, right-click the shortcut to the software and select Properties. Click Compatibility tab and change the settings as necessary. ;)
Ron
Message Edited by RoHe on 12-10-2007 10:37 PM
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Posted December 11th, 2007 13:00
so your hd now has 3 partitions. Does XP see the new partition? Is it large enough to install XP on? I would think that would work. A thought, if you are not ready for vista, back it all up and replace it with XP until you are ready. Or you could get a second drive and install that with XP whil preserving the Vista. You could even put vistadrive in a portable case and run it usb120
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Posted December 11th, 2007 16:00
The pci.sys error is a known Microsoft bug that was fixed in SP2. Nothing you can do, aside from installing with an SP2 disk, will fix this problem.
Just do it legally, please...
And maybe you need to read something like this:
http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88231
Ron
Message Edited by RoHe on 12-11-2007 10:56 AM
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Posted December 11th, 2007 17:00
Alright guys, thanks for your help. I'll have to wait until next payday to get a copy of XP Pro with SP2 then. Hopefully that'll fix the problem. Thanks again!
tr4
1727 Posts
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Posted December 11th, 2007 02:00