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schugg

12 Posts

38111

September 6th, 2007 14:00

Replace Vista with XP or Return computer?

My wife just purchased an Inspiron 1520 with Windows Vista Basic preinstalled.  She is a teacher and planned on using the computer for all of her teacher prep/grading/email at home.  Unfortunately Vista is not compatible with her school's web-based email, with remote access for Blackbaud (the attendance/grading/scheduling), or with textbook related software (electronic teacher's edition textbook and computer test generator).  Unfortunately we did not imagine this amount of non-compatibility.  We did originally look at a Dell XP machine, but there just weren't many XP laptops still offered by Dell (Inspiron 1501 and XPS).
 
Our decision now is whether to try and get a copy of XP to install in place of Vista on this machine (and hope we can sort out all of the drivers) or try to return this machine (I believe we are still in the return period) and replace it with a Dell laptop with XP pre-installed.  Either way is going to cost some money (our fault for not fully researching Vista compatibility issues with her school's resources).  Any recommendations either way?
 
Thanks in advance for the inputs and help.

schugg

12 Posts

September 19th, 2007 16:00

Bill B,
 
Would a USB zip drive work as well as a USB floppy drive?
 
Thanks.
 
 
 
Inspiron 1520
Vista Basic
Intel T7100
2 GB RAM
Dell DW1390

schugg

12 Posts

September 20th, 2007 00:00

Bill B,
 
I was able to get a USB floppy drive and put the RAID driver on a floppy disk.  I then booted to the CD/DVD with the XP O/S CD in it.  Setup initializes and eventually asks for a third party driver, which I select from the floppy disk.  Unfortunately Windows setup aborts shortly thereafter (I have tried several times).  I get the blue screen of death with the following message:
 
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
 
STOP:  0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0xF748E0BF, 0xF78DA208, 0xF78D9F08)
 
pci.sys - Address F748E0BF base at F7487000, Datestamp 3c0bfadb
 
During setup when it says it does not see a storage device the F6 key does not seem to do the trick.  It asks me to press S (I think) to upload a third party driver.
 
I uploaded the Intel 82801 HEM/HBM SATA AHCI 1CH8M driver, which matches what I have on the Vista hard drive.
 
Any ideas as to the problem?
 
Thanks again!
 
 
 
Inspiron 1520
Vista Basic
Intel T7100
2 GB RAM
Dell DW1390

ktme9300

151 Posts

September 20th, 2007 06:00

I used nlite to slipstream the sata drivers onto an XP installation CD. It worked rather well and is what I would recommend. Try searching for nlite related posts. I believe that I addressed this earlier in the thread. Go to http://www.nliteos.com/ for downloading the program and guide information.
 
Basically you copy the contents of the installation CD into a file folder on your hard drive. Then you'll want to copy over the contents of the sata driver into a separate folder on your hard drive. The nlite program will enable you to add those drivers onto the installation CD, compile it and burn it to an iso file on a CD.
 
Boot the disk created by nlite and you'll be able to recognize the hard drive and install XP. It was very simple. Best of all, the program is free.

schugg

12 Posts

September 20th, 2007 14:00

I am installing XP, so the driver was the XP version of the Intel 82801 HEM/HBM SATA AHCI 1CH8M driver.
 
From looking at other sites, it looks like the pci.sys STOP may be a video driver problem which can be resolved by having XP SP2 integrated into the installation CD (that integrates newer video drivers for newer systems).  The XP Pro I have is not updated with SP2.  I can either buy it integrated or use nlite to slipstream it (along with the RAID driver while I am at it) into a bootable XP Pro SP1 installation CD.
 
Thanks.
 
Inspiron 1520
Vista Basic (soon hopefully XP)
Intel T7100
2 GB RAM
Dell DW1390

larrylsf

5 Posts

December 5th, 2007 08:00

I recently had to make the same choices, my DEL 1720 came with VISTA and after two weeks of fighting with the problems of VISTA I decided to get replace it with XP.  I got onto to DELL support site and found a message that gave me the information on customizing the XP installation CD.  It took all of last Sunday to do the installation, I was short some drivers, but Dell-Mike or whoever in a lower message gave good links to the drivers, better than the generic 1720/XP search on Dell.
 
The computer is faster and better, is compatible with a production Graphtec Scanner where we are usinging it to index 30,000 engineering drawings.  I'm thinking of UPGRADING my other 1720 to XP also after the significant increase in performance I've witnessed.

larrylsf

5 Posts

December 5th, 2007 09:00

I need to make a correction, it was DELL-Bill B that gave me the best Driver links below.

larrylsf

5 Posts

December 5th, 2007 09:00

Thank you for the links to the drivers, also I found I needed to build a new installation CD with the XP CD using nLite 3.4.  You need to do this to get XP to recognize the Hard Disks.  nLite seemed self explanitory and I would recommend it to any novice.  Afterwards you can install the drivers separately if necessary.

larrylsf

5 Posts

December 5th, 2007 09:00

Yes you need the XP SP2, that was the Upgrade I purchased at my local CompUSA, I was able to use an earlier version of 2000 I had purchased as my qualifying product.  It appears XP will qualify on Me, 2000, NT and some other earlier products.

larrylsf

5 Posts

December 5th, 2007 09:00

I've had prpblems finding the built-in Wireless Network driver for the Inspiron 1720 for XP, any suggestions?

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