unable to install xp pro on e520

Question

First of all i am new here and yes i have searched the forum but i can't seem to find the problem like mine.   ok here it goes:   i have: Windows Vista Home Premium (build 6000) 3.20 gigahertz Intel Pentium D  with 2 GB of RAMBoard: Dell Inc. 0WG864 BIOS: Dell Inc. 2.3.2 03/30/2007 SAMSUNG HD160JJ/P [Hard drive] (160.00 GB) -- drive 0ST3320620AS [Hard drive] (320.07 GB) -- drive 1 Intel(R) G965 Express Chipset Family [Display adapter] (2x)Generic Non-PnP Monitor (hanns-g HW191D)   few days ago i have purchased seagate HD with 320gb and i wanted to install windows XP pro on it (retail that i paid for) and i tried to follow the regular procedure like i did before when i installed xp on my other comp. i put in the cd and start up the comp. well here is where the issues begin. it starts to load all those drivers and when it comes to the portion where it says setup will now install the windows it gives me blues screen with error where is says that if this was first time seeing that error to try again. something about corrupt HD and how i might have bad HD or virus on it. this is brand new HD. (oh btw i unplugged the HD that has vista on it just in case so it will not erase any data on that HD -and yes i tried multiple combinations - plugged or unplugged) i tired again few more times and always does same exact thing. i booted up vista formatted new HD and tried again. same thing happened. so in short i could not install XP with my comp.   just to make sure that everything is ok with the HD i tried it in different computer. it worked fine so the problem was not HD. than using that other computer i installed XP on that new HD. xp worked fine on that comp, so i pulled out the HD and installed it in my machine. Unplugged the HD with vista on it so there will be only one OS and turn on the computer. XP started loading and just before it can show welcome screen, computer would restart it self and it would do the same thing basically doing the same thing over and over again (loop).   i would post screen shouts of my bios setting but i am not sure if i am allowed to so i will not do it now.   help please.

Hydralisk00222 · Answer

Load SATA drivers during Textmode setup by pressing F6. Or set SATA mode to IDE in BIOS

mr.V · Answer

wow that was really quick reply.   i will try that. in the meanwhile i updated bios to 2.4.0   thank you

Hydralisk00222 · Answer

yea, as you get newer computers this is going to be mandatory. microsoft can't possibly preload all these controller drivers so it will be up to you to load it up.

mr.V · Answer

sigh yes it worked but it caused another problem.   i tried installing the sata drives by pressing f6 during the setup and that didn't work. than i changed that setting in bios and it worked just fine. i was able to install the xp on the HD and make it run. than i rebooted the system and the only thing that was booting was xp. with xp i can see my other hd but that is it. when starting up it seems that my hd with vista on it has disappeared. it is there on bios and like i said xp does see it when it's running but when loading it is like it's not there.   now in order to boot vista i went to bios and changed everything to defaults. it still didn't work. than i unplugged the hd with xp on it and the comp keeps asking for that hd saying there is no OS and something like that. i took picture of it ( with my cam) that i will post later (now 2 am).   now what should i do? reinstall vista? format both hd? format hd with where is vista?   pls help   thank you.

mr.V · Answer

just a quick update. issue has been resolved. i reinstalled the vista and formatted the hd with xp on it. computer runs so much faster.   just a quick note. when i was running XP  and when i compare it to vista, honestly there is no much difference between the two performance wise. i had to try it myself to believe it. Reinstalling of vista resolved some issues i had with some programs. computer runs very smooth and stable.   thank you for your help and i am done with experimenting. i am sticking with what works.   if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Windows General

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