Unable to remove Vista and install XP Sony VAIO FZ140E

Hi,

I ended up buying a Sony VAIO FZ140E which came with Vista. I was not expecting to face any problems and I inserted my genuine XP CD in the DVD drive and started the system.... Everything appeared to be working as it does when you are installing XP on a new machine UNTIL i got a windows which basically said that no internal drives can be found... and press F3 to exit.

Am I now stuck with Vista? I don't want it, hate it, and want XP on my Laptop. Can someone PLEASE help.

Thanks.

Many thanks krazynutz. I'll try that. BTW,if it works will I be able to install the drivers which I have downloaded from Sony's site) and be able to use everything without any problem?

I just bought a Sony VAIO VGN-NR310E with Intel T2370 Dual-core processor and Windows Vista preinstalled on it. I shrank the original partition and installed a new partition and tried to install Windows Xp as dual boot(it wasn't easy because SATA hard drive changes cannot be made in the BIOS, so had to slipstream some SATA AHCI drivers using nlite before the hard disks could be recognized. THe installation of XP was uneventful and I selected the usual regional setting and username etc. When the computer restarting it showed the usual window of XP but a few seconds after that went completely blank and restarted. So, after an apparent normal installation, XP just does not start!! Any suggestions ??!!

m_shezy, what is your laptop? We can then point you in the right direction.

hi,i too cannot able to install win XP professional on my sony vaio VGN-AR61E laptop having windows vista home premium.whn i try to install disk not found error comes and ask to press F3 to exit.there is no option in bios to change the drive settings to make it SATA.plz help me out.i dont want vista on my system

Why don't you want Vista? Unless you have a specific program or some peice of hardware that lacks a driver... there's no reason to choose XP over Vista. Vista is stable and generally more powerful. If you're just going on the hearsay that 'Vista is crap', you should know times have changed - Vista is an excellent OS and mostly a pleasure to work with.

Does anyone know which key needs to be pressed (at the time of starting the laptop) to go into the BIOS settings. The laptop is Sony Vaio FZ140E

i havent read the replies but i guess none of them give you a solution, these guys here act like they know but they dont know ***.

anyway you're problem is either very simple or very impossible, you're using a perticular hard drive which doesn't support the rai on xp, to start go to the laptop bios menu and disable "RAID" or anything that's to deal with it. this will allow xp cd to find your hard drive.

if that doesnt work, there is 1 more try, its to get the RAID drivers from Sony website for that hard drive "if its still original HD from the laptop" those drivers you copy them into a floppy disk "external floppy because laptops dont have floppy drives" and then when you start installing xp hit F6 anyway it tells you in the bottom bar to hit f6 to install 3rd party drivers. the rest is easy just follow instructions

those raid drivers will be installed on your bios ship and then xp will find your hard drive. and then you can do the rest.

WARNING: IF THE SONY WEBSITE DOES NOT PROVIDE DRIVERS FOR XP FOR YOUR LAPTOP ON THEIR WEBSITE IT MEANS FORGET ABOUT USING XP ON YOUR LAPTOP

Here is a website where someone successfully did this and will try doing it myself because Vista is painfully slow, if I can't do it then I will install Ubuntu:

http://www.eskimo.com/~webguy/serv [...] vista.html

hacking is always fun i'll have to save this link