Dean_S
asked on
Installing XP as third OS on Dell Vostro 3500
Spent many days trying to slipstream the Dell SATA driver into XP using nlite. Have also tried hints and suggestions from Windows Seven Forums, including downloading suggested Intel drivers.
Much of my problem is trying to make sense of the number of apparent driver options to try to integrate.
Sometimes I have ended up with 1.13 or 1.5+MBs to burn -tried this, and one of them would install in a VPC 2007. When I then tried to use this disk to do a real installation in my third partition, after loading the Windows files got the message "A problem has been detected.........and Windows has been shut down ...etc".
With disks of the expected size - about 600 MB - I am still getting this blue screen.
I think the SATA driver is either not there, or the wrong one, or??
There are now 3 DVDs and 6 CDs in the bin!
Much of my problem is trying to make sense of the number of apparent driver options to try to integrate.
Sometimes I have ended up with 1.13 or 1.5+MBs to burn -tried this, and one of them would install in a VPC 2007. When I then tried to use this disk to do a real installation in my third partition, after loading the Windows files got the message "A problem has been detected.........and Windows has been shut down ...etc".
With disks of the expected size - about 600 MB - I am still getting this blue screen.
I think the SATA driver is either not there, or the wrong one, or??
There are now 3 DVDs and 6 CDs in the bin!
SOLUTION
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ASKER
Thank you to Marsilies. I successfully made bootable CD with Sata drivers - I put those you listed in a separate folder, so that the f6flpyx86 was not included by nlite. However I regret to report that my attempts to end with both W7 and XP bootable did not work out.
I installed XP satisfactorily - but noticed that when the unpartitioned space was selected , and C was pressed to create a partiton in it, that the Dell partitions and that for W7 changed to one larger partition, apparently empty. When I did a restart from XP, the W7 /XP choice did not show - it went straight to XP.
I then reinstalled the two Dell partitions and W7 from a backup I had earlier put on an external drive. Used EasyBCD 2.0 to load ntldr for XP. Both OSs then showed. W7 was normal. XP however stopped at the Welcome screen/loading your settings EXCEPT the words were missing - only the XP icon etc was there.
I tried again, this time pressing F8, but the window was unchanged - that is, F8 did not work.
This seems to be like Catch 22. I can have one or the other. I can't see a way past this, so will reluctantly settle for XP Mode in W7.
I installed XP satisfactorily - but noticed that when the unpartitioned space was selected , and C was pressed to create a partiton in it, that the Dell partitions and that for W7 changed to one larger partition, apparently empty. When I did a restart from XP, the W7 /XP choice did not show - it went straight to XP.
I then reinstalled the two Dell partitions and W7 from a backup I had earlier put on an external drive. Used EasyBCD 2.0 to load ntldr for XP. Both OSs then showed. W7 was normal. XP however stopped at the Welcome screen/loading your settings EXCEPT the words were missing - only the XP icon etc was there.
I tried again, this time pressing F8, but the window was unchanged - that is, F8 did not work.
This seems to be like Catch 22. I can have one or the other. I can't see a way past this, so will reluctantly settle for XP Mode in W7.
It's a good thing you made the backups, otherwise your situation could be much worse.
The XP bootloader does not play well with later versions of Windows. When I created a dual-boot between XP and Vista, with Vista installed first, I decided to hide the Vista and other partitions first, so that XP would only see its own partition when installing. I used a partition manager on a bootable CD like Parted Magic:
http://partedmagic.com/
When XP was successfully installed, I then booted Parted Magic again and unhid the Vista partition. I then used EasyBCD to add the XP partition to the Vista bootloader.
The XP bootloader does not play well with later versions of Windows. When I created a dual-boot between XP and Vista, with Vista installed first, I decided to hide the Vista and other partitions first, so that XP would only see its own partition when installing. I used a partition manager on a bootable CD like Parted Magic:
http://partedmagic.com/
When XP was successfully installed, I then booted Parted Magic again and unhid the Vista partition. I then used EasyBCD to add the XP partition to the Vista bootloader.
ASKER
I have a clearer idea of what happened now.
Although I had seen that the two Dell partitions were each "Primary", I did not recall that at the time when I selected the unallocated part of the disk and then C to forma partition. As there were already 4 because I also had W7 and Vista, it seems that to create the new one the XP installation files then wiped the others!
I have now got just W7 and Vista, with XP Mode in W7.
I suppose I don't need the Dell Recovery partition - I have the disk and also backups - but I think I will stay as I am for the time being.
Although I had seen that the two Dell partitions were each "Primary", I did not recall that at the time when I selected the unallocated part of the disk and then C to forma partition. As there were already 4 because I also had W7 and Vista, it seems that to create the new one the XP installation files then wiped the others!
I have now got just W7 and Vista, with XP Mode in W7.
I suppose I don't need the Dell Recovery partition - I have the disk and also backups - but I think I will stay as I am for the time being.
ASKER
The question that I had was really rather convoluted, as I was feeling my way quite a bit.
For this reason we did not get a full match between us - never-the-less, thanks to all and apologies for my lack of precision.
For this reason we did not get a full match between us - never-the-less, thanks to all and apologies for my lack of precision.
ASKER
I have Googled the sites named, but find I am uncertain about much of them. May I digress to tell you what happened when I went to the Dell site and downloaded the SATA driver for XP (I can't get a screen shot to paste - hence the typing):-
setup.log
setup.iss
setup.inx
setup.ini
setup.exe
layout.bin
ISSetup.dll
data2.cab
data1.hdr
data1.cab
_Setup.dll
f6flpy-x86
f6flpy-x64 The x68 is 582MB. When opened the top 5 items match those on the XP(SP3) disk, except that i386 is 452,897 bytes less. The last three in each list are WIN51, WIN51IP, and WIN51IP.sp3.
The items in the download (R254174) that seem to include driver files are:-
desktop.ini
F6Readme.txt
iaAHCI.cat
iaAHCI.inf
iaStor.cat
iaStor.inf
iaStor.sys
license.txt
TXTSETUP.OEM When I use nlite, and click Insert and Single, and then scroll to the R254174>f6flpyx86 and open the two .inf files appear for selection. If I insert one, then the other can't be inserted - the message is that the .inf files are already there.
Whichever of the .inf fileI get a list of 5 with AHCI in the name. I select the one which shows in the Device manager in the laptop.
When the loading is done in nlite it shows 584MB plus about the same size added, giving 1.13GB or thereabouts.
Can you show any light on this confusion please?