I installed Vista on my laptop; I format, try to reinstall xp, but i get Blue Screen

if your laptop is kinda new..you might need XP with SP1a on it. i think it has to do with PCI-E (XP doesnt support it and BSODs off the bat)
 
i don't understand why SP2 wouldn't work, that's how it came to me in the first place

it's a relatively new laptop, bought in january of this year

thinkpad x60
 
No, you're not.

Remove the laptop HD, get an adapter to connect it to a desktop, format the drive, re-install the drive, set BIOS to boot from CD first, re-install XP. You need to blow away the label, too.

Likewise, you may need to change the boot order in the BIOS after the initial XP setup, so that it sees the HD first and the CD second.
 
You havn't done it. I know because you're not asking the right questions.

Since you don't want to help yourself, you're stuck with Vista.
 
i took the hard drive out, connected it to my desktop's SATA connection and formated, put it back in laptop, try to install xp

blue screen

i'm sorry i'm not asking the right questions, and i really appreciate all the help given
 
I just re-installed XP replacing Vista the other night. I liked Vista but my desktop just couldn't handle it properly. I got it free from school so no big deal. The only problem I had installing xp was that it was from a burnt copy (also free from my school) and I had to burn a bootable cd first. If thats the problem your having I can search and try to find the website with the tutorial and the download with .img to make the data bootable.
 
Alright. We'll give this a go.

So the HDD is clean, as you pre-formatted, etc.

XP disk in the drive, power on - then what exactly happens? There shouldl be a blue screen that shows drivers loading at the bottom.
 
Same thing happened with me when taking Vista off my desktop. SATA drives where my problems.

Slipstreamed an XP disk together with SP2 and SATA drivers. When into my BIOS and told it to Auto detect instead of SATA. Booted up with the slipstreamed disk and XP loaded just fine.
 
If there's a code it could help but I think an above psoter has it.

Your HDD is likely SATA and XP doesn't have the drivers, neither does the motherboard. Usually this leads to a 'no HDD detected' error at the screen subsequent to driver laoding. I wouldn't be the least bit suprised if it's BSOD'ingn on driver loading instead.

Drop the SATA drivers on a 3.5", interrupt the XP disk bootup to "Load third party RAID drivers", then load them from the 3.5" and continue. This is the layman's version of 'slipstreaming', a process that allows you to add just about anything to an XP install.

If that doesn't do it, in order of liklyhood, it's either a corrupted install disk, a proprietary motherboard conflict, or faulty RAM.
 
You're just missing drivers

go on lenovos website, pull all the drivers for your laptop that are compatible with winxp sp2... Read up on nlite, and created a winxp boot disc that contains your drivers.
 
Yes, he should definitely burn the latest Ubuntu iso and run Memtest.

If it is the lack of SATA drivers, then perhaps he needs to slipstream SP2 onto a new CD since supposedly they have them in there.
 
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