yeah looks like something about the bios is missing, i also tried to install the drivers for my laptop on xp and it gave me a bios missing error

thanks for the help tali hopefully i can get this running correct!

Alex, it's 2.45 in the morning and I finally sussed it! In the end I had the same problem as you the nltr/ whatever the stupid letters were!! I kept fiddling until my eyes popped out! In the end let me tell you what did it: Vistabootpro allows you to manage your OSs, you can select the drives name them etc. Well I have Vista on C and I created D and put XP there. Vista worked fine, XP would only boot the first time after that I got that missing nt... message.... Well I kept playing, I tried different bootloader installs in Vistabootpro, got XP back once, but then no Vista! After that got Vista back no XP - error again. Well in the end in the OS manager part I selected C drive for both OSs, it seems that somehow the bootloaders for both OSs ended up on C even though XPs on D and Vista's on C. So setting XP to C even though it's actually on D works as that's where the bootloader is?!!!?!>!>!! My approach was not scientific, but I got there - try it! It must be because the VistabootPro is VISTA boot pro so is preferred that drive for la la la la lal..... no real idea actually.... William?

Anyway, what I want to do is go to bed, but I had to let you know as the formus help me so much, so what little I can give back (and believe me it's little) I will!

Tali

heh wow, i had already removed the partition and erased all the data, well im going to be re-installing xp tonight haha i hope it works, thanks!

sweet, that worked, now if only the drivers would install on my laptop, it keeps giving me a error that saying the bios aren't for the computer when i download the exact model and its from the manufacturer so i dont know whats going on, and without the drivers it makes xp pretty much useless

I had some similar trouble, I got to XP and all the hardware was dead because the drivers are embedded in the stupid recovery DVD rather than on a utilities disc. They are unaccessable! So what I did is this: I went to Toshiba (my laptop make) found the model and searched for drivers. I found options there to have drivers for Vista and XP. I have started downloading them and now most of my hardware is up and running. I am obviously going to save them and make my own utilities disc. I don't know if that helps you with your new issue, but I at least glad you're making progress!

Why these companies don't give you a machine on which you make the desicions about what you want rather than supporting one OS only I will never know. Obviously they only make computers for people who want to browse the net and play games, not for people who have bigger techno-ambitions.

My problems seem to be over-ish now, but let me know how you get on and if I can suggest anything, I will!

May the force be with us all!

Tali

How do I set the new parition for XP to drive E:?

And incase something goes wrong how do I acess my vista parition with all my data?

Change the driver letter in Vistabootpro in the OS management part. As for access, well whatever OS you're in you can access anything on the PC. When I'm XP I can even get to the Vista program files.

yeah i did the same thing but the drivers weren't available for xp, i installed all the drivers from the v6000 series and it works great, other than the graphics drivers which lags the screen and basically makes it un-usable, if anyone can help me find the driver for the nvidia go 6100 for xp that would be great, i googled it and downloaded a couple but they didn't work

Ok I have my main parition on Vista with all my stuff on it.

Then I create an allocated space of 20 gb I boot from the xp CD then I put in ME because I have update of XP Home.

Then it comes to the partitions and it only shows my vista partition.

Why is this? Why doesnt it show my unallocated space?

And It says I have 200 gb free on my hard drive. When I get to partition part it only shows I have 125gb free.

Maybe it doesnt show the partition becasue of xp upgrade?

And in partition 1 it says its like 13500 space and it says 13500 space free.

Do i click enter on partition 1? Or will I lose all my stuff? If i click enter wont i get a warning.

All help appreciated.

Success...so far...Question, tale of woe, warning!
 

First post! Great site, great tutorial, thank you much!

I picked my screen name because, despite quite a bit of experience (programming real-time at chip level in hex, coding in MATLAB, FORTRAN, LISP, build my own computers, etc) it seems I'm getting stale and every time I try something I end up in a mess!

I bought a box for the boss when his crashed during an office move. I was tied up and needed something quick, so just went to the local big box and picked up a machine with Vista Home Premium on it, intending to "downgrade" to XP as this was OK with Micro$oft. Long story short, ended up with Vista Ultimate and an unformated partition for XP so:

Thanks #1 for including the fact that this partition must be formatted BEFORE you start the XP setup. Another site left that little detail out, which caused much frustration!

Thanks #2 for having the QA right below so I could find that I had to get into the BIOS & disable SATA native mode for XP to see the formatted partition. That solved the "Your computer has been stopped..." BSOD that I was getting.

Problem #1 - now install was going, but as install proceeded (and I was typing this) something locked up, so I'm now using XP cd's recovery console to reformat the partition. Note too, that although I'd used Vista's disk manager to format the partition and designate the drive letter as "D:", XP Setup detected it as "H:" (Volume name was the one I'd given it).

Question #1: (Background) We'd always, prior to XP, used two physical drives or at least two partitions in our machines, with Windows and the programs on C: and all our docs/data on D: Then with XP we were stuck with the "Documents and Settings" folder for the user hives even if we pointed the "My Documents" folder to the D: drive. I eventually found a way to move the user hives to D: (not for the faint of heart, mind you!), but it's a lot easier to just say where you want it on install. (Q) But how does one run winnt.exe or win32.exe in unattended mode, with an Unattended.txt file having the desired drive:\directory entry, when you're installing from the CD? Off-topic to be sure, but whilst I'm here...

Helpful Hint: After I raised holy cain, my manufacturer responded with a complete list of where I could get XP drivers for my machine. I'm with the soul who posted that the computer manufacturer should support you using any operating system you fiddly well please, just because they pre-install an operating system shouldn't lock you into that forever, at the very least among teh Windows flavors. Supposedly, the major manufacturers are supporting XP downgrades, as they bloody well ought to. But you may have to push pretty hard.

Best to all,

DangerousTom