hi,

i have a HP pavilion dv6000 laptop which came with vista 64 bit already installed. now i'm trying to install windows xp (32 bit), but can't seem to set it up properly. when i enter the installing setup from the boot, it tells me that the setup did not detect any notebook hard disks. when it try to open the setup from the xp cd (when i'm logged in vista), a massage appears telling that "this program is blocked due to compatibility issues". i got to tell you i have copied the xp cd from a friend of mine, and is the only one i have right now, do i have to try from a original cd? i expect the compatibility issue is due to xp being 32 bit version, but i don't know why i can't get run the setup when booted from cd.

if anyone has any idea how to fix this, please help me, i want to install xp 32 bit.

my specs are:
cpu - core 2 duo @ 2.0 GHz
ram - 2 GB ddr2-sdram
hdd - 160 gb sata

have you setup a seperate partition for your XP install? If not you must do that first. You can do that from within vista.

You cant enter setup from Vista as you are running the 64 bit version and the XP is going to try to make it 32 bit.

Once you have the extra partition xp should find its new home.
You will then have to read this to get your boot order set up correctly since you are putting a older op system on after a newer one.

here is a article from the windows secrets new letter that should be of help.

Make your computer dual-boot Vista and XP

By Scott Dunn

It's getting harder to buy a new computer with Windows XP installed and — after Microsoft stops selling XP on June 30, 2008 — it will become nearly impossible.

Fortunately, you can have your XP cake and eat your Vista, too, by setting up your system to boot between the two operating systems.


Add an XP option to your new Vista system

If a new computer arrived in your recent past, or you plan to buy one in the near future, chances are it will come with Windows Vista installed. Although some manufacturers still give you the option of getting XP on your new system, that option is likely to dry up for most consumers later this year when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP.

If you're not ready to dive into Vista all at once, there is an answer: set up your Vista computer to dual-boot between Vista and XP.

In this article, I'll tell you how to make your PC give you a choice between Vista and XP every time you start up. In a separate article coming soon, I'll give you some additional tips that save disk space on a dual-boot system.

Although some sources, such as Computer Shopper Magazine, advise that you need an add-on product like VistaBootPro to dual-boot, you can accomplish the same thing without any additional software other than the two operating systems.

Before starting, make sure you have your Windows XP install discs ready as well as your Windows Vista DVD. In addition, it's a good idea to make a complete system backup before beginning an operation like this.

Once you've laid that groundwork, you're ready to go to work:

Step 1. In Vista, click Start, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Click Continue if prompted by User Account Control.

Step 2. Right-click a drive and choose Shrink Volume. Specify the amount to shrink, which in this case is the amount you want for your XP partition. At a minimum, you'll need around 2.5GB for XP Pro SP2. I suggest you select a larger partition to leave room for updates and other files that may need to be on the same drive as XP. Because I wanted a 5GB partition, I typed 5000 (representing 5,000 megabytes) in the available box. Click Shrink.

Step 3. Right-click the newly available area and choose New Simple Volume. Follow the steps in the wizard to assign a drive letter now, or wait until the next step. When prompted, check Perform a quick format to format the volume with NTFS.

Step 4. When the wizard is done formatting the new volume, you can assign or rearrange drive letters as needed. For example, changing drive letters may also put your CD/DVD drive in a more logical order.

To do that, right-click a volume or the CD/DVD drive and choose Change Drive Letters and Paths. If a volume hasn't got a drive letter yet, click Add. Otherwise, select the drive icon in the dialog box and click Change.

If you're rearranging the letters on existing drives, you may need to change the drives in a particular order. Or you may need to give a drive a temporary letter (such as Z) to free up a letter for another drive; you would change the Z drive to something else later. Make your selection and click OK. Repeat for other partitions or drives until you have the order you want.

Step 5. When you're done with your partitioning chores, exit Disk Management. Insert your XP disc into the drive and restart your system, booting from that disk.

Step 6. Follow the steps to install XP. When asked for the target drive, select your new partition and press Enter. Because you already formatted this partition with NTFS, you can skip the formatting step. At the appropriate screen, arrow down to Leave the current file system intact (no changes) and press Enter. Continue the installation process until it's finished and XP has started.

Step 7. Your system now boots to XP, so we'll need to do some fixing to set up a boot menu. Insert your Vista DVD and restart the computer from it. Click Next in the first screen.

Step 8. Don't click Install when prompted! Instead, click Repair Your Computer in the lower-left corner.

Step 9. When the System Recovery Options dialog appears, make sure Microsoft Windows Vista is selected and click Next. In the next dialog box, select the Command Prompt option at the bottom.

Step 10. In the command-prompt window, type the following commands and press Enter after each one:

bootrec.exe /fixMBR
bootrec.exe /fixBoot

Step 11. Close the command prompt and click Restart.

Step 12. When your computer has booted into Vista, click Start, type cmd.exe, and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to make the command window open with elevated privileges. Click Continue, if prompted by User Account Control.

Step 13. Type the following commands in the command window, one at at time, pressing Enter after each one. After each command, you should get the response, "The operation completed successfully." A response of, "The specified entry already exists," is OK, too. If not, retype your command to make sure you've entered it correctly. If Vista is installed on a drive other than c:, change the first command below to use the proper drive letter. The curly braces around {ntldr} in each command must be typed exactly as shown:

bcdedit -set {ntldr} device partition=C:
bcdedit -set {ntldr} path \ntldr
bcdedit -displayorder {ntldr} -addlast
bcdedit -set {ntldr} description "Microsoft Windows XP"

That's it! The next time you restart your system, you should be see a prompt that will let you choose between Vista or XP. Select the one you want and press Enter.

How to customize your boot menu

When you start your dual-boot system, the menu will appear for a few seconds. If you don't press any keys, eventually Windows Vista will start. Fortunately, you can change this if you don't want Vista to be your default operating system. You can also customize the waiting period before the default kicks in.

Here's what to do:

Step 1. Click Start. Type systempropertiesadvanced and press Enter. Click Continue, if prompted by User Account Control.

Step 2. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.

Step 3. At the top of the dialog box, select the operating system you want to start by default.

Step 4. In the box to the right of Time to display list of operating systems, specify the number of seconds for the options to stay on screen. Click OK.

Microsoft provides documentation of Vista's bcdedit command and its parameters in an article in the Windows Vista Technical Library

hi pat mcgroin, thanks for your post
actually i didn't setup a separate partition for XP because i wanted to completely remove vista and setup a dual boot of XP and ubuntu. i would make it vista and ubuntu but i don't have the vista dvd. i also wanted to repartition the whole hard disk as it is divided 160 GB = 145 + 15. it is possible to "swallow" half of the vista partition from the ubuntu installer, but i'm not sure vista will work correctly then with a part of the partition taken away, even after defragmenting.

you can shrink the size of the vista partition from within vista and then expand the other one. Then you will be able to reformat the extra partition with the ubuntu disk and install it.

something to consider would be to create a small third partition to store what Im going to say next.
get a copy of Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, or (freeware) Drive Image XML.
Any of these progs will take a snapshot of your drive that you can use to restore your system. It would be especially important for you as you dont have your vista disk. It will reinstall everything including drivers and programs so if you just want the op system you will need to delete anything you dont want first.
Make a image of your drive before you do anything to it so that you are safe.
Then after changing the partitions make another image.
If I remember correctly the image likes to be put back on the same size partiton as it came from thus the second image but read the documentation to be sure.

I havent used ubuntu but Im pretty sure it comes with GRUB which will sort out your boot order.

ps there are several other drive image progs out there and many are either free or shareware but I have neither seen or heard much about them so I cant recommend them.

If vista causes trouble with the partitions you can get a copy of GParted Live
that will do it. It is a bootable linux disk that can change partitions

ok, i got that and i will try that later on today, or maybe tomorrow.

yes, ubuntu comes with grub so i don't have to worry about boot order etc, just need a free partition

Your laptop has a SATA HDD, so for XP to install you'll need the SATA drivers to install at the F6 prompt, so XP can see the HDD, once XP can see the HDD you can simply delete the Primary partition and Vista is history, then XP will install from scratch.

Since you do not have a floppy drive, installing the F6 drivers can be done from an XP approved [Mitsumi is one of them], USB external Floppy drive or you can slipstream the SATA drivers to the installation CD.

Its very important that you have pre-acquired all the necessary internal component and M/B drivers for XP before you even attempt to do something like this!

...thanks !
i think i may keep vista, but just in case, can i install f6 drivers also with usb flash drive?

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm


Method 2

hi give this site a go it helped me ..... http://www.user-guides.co.uk/asp/p [...] &PT_ID=all