Solved! Can't install XP to Sony Vaio Netbook

[octobersurprise]

I have a Sony Vaio M VPCM121AX/L ten inch netbook which came with Windows 7 Starter. Wiped the hard drive with a disc scrubber. Pressed F2 and set BIOS to boot from external device. Hooked up LG portable drive and inserted Windows XP Home Edition CD (dated 2001, no Service Packs). Powered up, booted from CD, Windows Setup loaded all drivers, then I got this message:

“A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK/ F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer. Technical Information: STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF7AC463C, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)”

I have a 250GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive. I went to the Sony site and downloaded SATA driver for clean XP installation. I downloaded the zip file to a flash drive and unzipped the six files to the flash drive. I re-started Windows XP installation process and pressed F6 to let Windows Setup know I had 3rd party drivers that needed to be installed. After inserting the flash drive, Windows Setup said it did not detect floppy containing 3rd party drivers. The zip file I downloaded wasn’t for my model number. Apparently Sony did not expect that anyone would want to downgrade this netbook to XP, so they don’t have a SATA driver for this particular model netbook. Any suggestions?

 

[WR2]

Hello octobersurprise;

If you had showed up here first I think we would have suggested you keep Win7 and setup a dual boot option with WinXP.

But for your present options - try doing an XP install from a USB thumb drive.
The method mentioned here should work for your Netbook.
Install Windows XP from USB Flash/Pen Drive

 

[WR2]

Windows XP Home Edition CD (dated 2001, no Service Packs). Any suggestions?

I do have one more suggestion.
That's to slipstream SP3 into your Windows installation disc before you press ahead with installing XP on your 'Netbook.

Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3)

 

[acerace]

And slipstream the SATA drivers also. (I don't know if the SP3 have one)

 

[octobersurprise]

I do have one more suggestion.
That's to slipstream SP3 into your Windows installation disc before you press ahead with installing XP on your 'Netbook.

Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3)

Hi WR2 and acerace: I am just now getting back to this project and thank you so very much for your replies. I suppose since I only have the one XP installation disc, if I create a bootable flash drive with that same disc, I’ll encounter this same problem, so I will follow the link to slipstreaming SP3 and try that. I’ll look again for a SATA driver to add to the slipstreaming (I’ve never tried slipstreaming before) but last night, I never could find a SATA driver for my model Sony Vaio netbook. I don’t know how generic SATA drivers are -- the one I downloaded last night to the flash drive came from a link I got from another thread on this site: http/esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNNS190JW&upd_id=3748&os_id=7 While on that page I tried their link, “See all applicable models and operating systems” but mine was not listed there either. Do either of you know if the SATA driver has to be exactly model-specific? Again, I really appreciate your time and expertise.

 

[WR2]

SATA drives for the install will be in the SP3 package.
I think you can skip adding them - but keep them handy for later.

 

[acerace]

Oh, thanks for the info WR2.

 

[octobersurprise]

WR2,
Reading the information on that slipstreaming link was helpful to my understanding of the process, but the steps seemed terribly complicated for my skills level. On another thread discussing a similar problem, someone had suggested to that person that he could create a new installation disc using freeware here: http/www.nliteos.com/download.html. So I went to that site and realized that it accomplishes pretty much what slipstreaming does, except seemingly (at least for me) less complicated. Obviously on a different computer, I downloaded nLite and then copied my installation disc into a folder. I then opened nLite and directed it to that folder. I then chose the options for adding Service Packs and drivers. I went to the Microsoft site and was informed that SP3 would not work without SP1 or SP1a. So I downloaded a copy of SP1a to another folder on my hard drive and then I downloaded a copy of SP3 to a different folder. Then I directed nLite to the SP1a folder. At the end of the copying process, I got an error message that some or all files were not copied. I tried it again with the same result and then moved on to directing nLite to copy my SP3 folder. At the end of that process, it said that SP3 had been successfully integrated. I had not come back to this forum in the interim, so I missed your message that SP3 does contain the SATA drivers. So I next directed nLite to my flash drive to copy the SATA drivers which I had downloaded from Sony. The browse button on nLite brought up two different .inf files in that SATA driver folder -- iaStor.inf and iaAHCI.inf. However, clicking on either gave me the exact same two options: “Regular PIP” or something about “text OEM.” Choosing the latter brought up a long list of model numbers, so I just went with “Regular PIP.” Before I had wiped my Sony Vaio hard drive clean, I saved the driver folder to a flash drive so I inserted that drive next and directed nLite to copy the .inf file in the driver folders for Bluetooth, Ethernet, Graphics, Memory Card, Pointing/Mouse, Firmware Extensions Parser, and Wireless LAN. nLite then said to insert a CD to burn WinLite.ISO, which I did. After several minutes, the CD popped out and I put it my external CD drive on my Sony Vaio netbook and rebooted. I could hardly believe it when it actually got past that CHKDSK/F error screen and started formatting the hard drive and copying Windows files. I don’t know if the SATA driver I added from my flash drive or the ones in SP3 worked, but either way, everything worked out just great -- I now have Windows XP with SP3 on my Sony Vaio netbook and so far, everything seems to work, including the left and right mouse buttons and pointing device. I haven’t yet tried to hook up to my wireless router because I want to install my anti-virus program before I get online. Again, thank you for your time.

 

[WR2]

Happy to hear you worked your way though to a successful install.

 

[acerace]

Wow, long sentence. Anyway, glad to hear that.