installing XP on vista laptop but xp install disk says there is not HDD

[Robert Peterson]

I have a toshiba laptop with vista. I have XP pro to install. Once xp tried to install I get a remark it cannot install there is no hd. If I boot to HDD vista tries to come up but I do not have the PSW

 

[jaguarskx]

The problem is that your laptop has a hard drive using the SATA interface. When Windows XP was released, SATA drives did not exist, only the older IDE drives were in existence. I forget when SATA drives hit the market, might have been 2006 / 2007. Therefore, during the installation process you need to provide the SATA drivers so that Windows XP can recognize the SATA hard drive. The problem is that this is usually done with a floppy disk. Yeah, remember those things with their massive storage capacity of 1.44MB?

There is a way around that issue, but it involves a bit of effort on your part. Click the below link for a guide that shows you how to create a Windows XP install CD with SATA drivers on it.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

Here's a video tutorial (not related to the above article):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca7StNaJLl8


This process is known as "Slipstreaming Windows XP".