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Ward DeWittFlag for United States of America

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How do I revert to WinXP after removing Vista 64

I had to remove Vista 64 because I could not find drivers for my printer.  Now the machine will not allow installation of WinXP.  I get a BSOD.  I was able to use my trusty BartPE disk that booted normally, but I'm not sure what that does to help me at this point.  I reformatted the Vista 64 partition, so it is empty.  When I built the machine, I put the OS on this 50gb partition, so my other data is OK.  I thought that I would have no trouble reinstalling WinXP once that was done.  On using the Vista installation disk, I can go into a dos-like mode, but "Help" doesn't work to give me any commands to use.  It appears my best option is with BartPE, but I could use guidance as to a method of procedure.
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Yancey Landrum
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I recommend that you clone the drive to another one if you have it; tear down the partitions; format and rebuild it that way.
Is the target partition space first on the drive (excluding a diag partition if any)? If it is not, that could complicate things. What you may end up having to do is move the data partition to another disk, do a low-level format of the target drive with the drive manufacturer's utility (e.g., maxtor, wd, seagate, etc), install xp, then move the data partition back.
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nobus
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I'm sure all of these suggestions have merit, but I located the trouble myself.  Pic.sys was the issue.  I had to slipstream XP SP-2 into a copy of my XP disc, then write a fresh CD with the result.  That solved the problem without using any of the above.  I will keep all of the suggestions in mind the next time.