That should leave the original Vista Image intact. But let me say in my opinion, unless you are doing some sort of virtualization or other ram intensive work you will never need 6GB of ram. Video work, for instance is very processor intensive but not as ram intensive. I am running Vista on a laptop with 3GB of ram and I can do any video work I need to with no ram problems. You could get 4GB incase you did go to 64bit but in my opinion 6GB would be a waste.
To wrap this up. I would recommend XP 32bit with 3 or 4GB ram and the fastest processor you can afford. I would use Acronis TrueImage to make a backup image of the original factory install of the system. Then I could be confident installing whatever I wanted, knowing I could restore that image if I needed to. Hope my rambling helps. Partition the drive and use it as a secondary drive and buy a new HD for XP. With some motherboards if you press F8 it displays the boot order and you can boot into any HD that you want.
On one of my computers I can boot into 3 different OS'. Vid83 If they give you DVD image of the entire drive that is great. Then you have no problems. The problem is most don't. I have 2 new Laptops both were the same, they gave me restore media but the restore media just was just a pointer to the hard drive image they had made.
When I destroyed the hard drive image the media was worthless. That is the way most companies do it today. Either way, rather than buying a new hard drive just buy Acronis True Image. I am telling you it will make your life worry free. When you go to install XP, partition the drive so you have a C and a D drive. Then after you do a fresh install make a full backup with Acronis.
This will insure if you have a problem installing drivers you can restore that original image in min rather than reinstalling XP again in 45min. Then when you get all the drivers in and activate make a new image.
And make images occasionally throughout the software install process. Then when you are fully installed you can get rid of any images you do not want. I would save the clean activated image, and an image with all your software that does not change. I always then have a final image that also has software that changes on a yearly basis like antivirus software, tax and financial software etc.
Then at any time during the year if your system crashes you have something to go back to without reinstalling from scratch. So as you can see it will solve the Vista problem but it will also give you a great backup solution to make life worry free.
In my opinion imaging software is a must for everyone. I don't work for the company I just think it is a great product. Again, hope this helps. That's what I may have to do when my current computer needs replacement. Vista is out of the question. I am not alluding to a Laptop machine, but a desktop one. Ok, I chatted with HP tech support last night. I asked about installing drivers for XP.
The representative asked for my computer model number that I am giong to purchase. He also asked whether I wanted the drivers now. The four drivers are LAN, chipset, sound, and I forgot the fourth one. I asked him if the four is all I need and he said yes. Does this sound right? I only need four drivers? The fourth is probably the video driver and those 4 may be all you need.
Like I mentioned though, look into your peripheral drivers as well. Depending on which way you are going you could run into trouble. Just to give you an idea here are the drivers I have needed for a desktop and a laptop. As buckeyefan has said, it's important to distinguish whether any given recovery disk contains a true image of an OS installation or merely points to the hard drive's manufacturer partition where the OS image actually is, tough if you have formatted the lot.
But there us another problem I've encountered with installing XP back on some HP notebooks that came with Vista: the part in the installation process that is supposed to say a hard drive is detected and would you like to format it blah-blah instead says no fixed disk was detected and so installation is aborting!
It seems HP, among others, implicitly want to discourage going back to XP by not enabling rudimentary SATA drivers in this manner so that any attempts at deliberate XP installation are futile. Wanted to install xp pro on a new gb hardrive. Before doing this contacted alienware support they said I need to change some bios settings but would not tell me what as they did not support second hand systems. Posted by: sbrobbs 09 Oct Hi ED, Did try it it seemed to install fine until I came to update the drivers.
I've never seen this before. I also tried to run a diagnostic program to tell me what was on my system but all it did was open a black window for a split second and then nothing but this worked fine on my desktop.
Posted by: Raj 18 Oct Posted by: Barry 02 Dec I could not get XP to boot up and making that one change fixed my problem. You da man! Posted by: Cat Cooter 11 Feb I havce Vista on a Dell inspiron and hate it. Nothing but issues. I have all my music stored on an external seagate drivce and can unplug it but will it still work right?
We can also copy everything off my computer and save it to a harddrive to reinstall, pictures etc. Will this work? FInal problem. I have a Seagate 1. It was working fine. I downloaded many anime full series on it and used it for back up then it quit doing the back ups. Next it said there was new software. After we installed the new software it totally screwed up my computer.
It took my husband hours to get it working again, but the Seagate cannot be used. I think we need drivers? Is it possible to fix this or am I just screwed, and will trying to downgrade to xp make things worse? I'm most concerned at this point about getting my big external running again. It's tricky even for tech savvy folks. At this point, I would check the Seagate website to get the latest Vista drivers for your device.
Posted by: Garry 12 Apr Posted by: Ryan 20 Apr I'm trying to downgrade upgrade a dell from vista home basic to xp pro. The xp disk is original and is from another computer. The computer I'm trying to put xp on is a dell that a friend gave me. His wife insisted that I wipe the hard drive right away but they didn't know where the original factory disks where. I figured it was no big deal and I would just over write everthing using the xp disk.
I got as far as the part where they ask for the product key, typed it in but no matter how many times I checked and double checked it would not except the number. I call MS tech support they passed me around from one hard to understand operator to another for about an hour I finally hung up on my 5th operator while she was in the middle of telling me some irelevancie that I had all ready heard from 3 prior operators. I've been looking around to see if anyone eles has had the same prob so far they havn't.
I saw in several differant places instructions that involve choosing the f2 start up going to drives, then sata options and pick one of the two choises. The problem with that is for some reason those options arn't on mine The bios is 1.
All there is is the cmos features,advanced bios features boot dev. So far in everthing I've read not one person seemed to have trouble finding these options and in all of the downgrade trouble I've read about so far none of the people where able to get as far as the product key part.
So now I'm confused and stuck with as nicer computer I can't use until my buddy brings the disk but, there's no telling when that'll happen. Thanks in advance Ry. Posted by: Andre 05 Jun The ones I have, there is no setup option. How do I install ethernet drivers. Posted by: matthew mccusker 17 Aug Posted by: Social Observer 29 Aug I've attempted to downgrade from vista to xp.
Upon completion of loading xp install disk, I get No disk found or available message, and can go no further. I've also looked at disk m'gmt to format C: drive, but I'm not allowed to, only the recovery drive is formattable.
How do I perform this downgrade?? Posted by: rahul 19 Sep I have licenced vista business key , but I want to install xp in my pc. How to install and How to activate my key? Yes No. Sorry this didn't help. Thanks for your feedback. I am starting a at home business and the software requires I have XP, not Vista. My lap top has Vista. Can I go from Vista back to XP? This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread.
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