I need your help on this one.

My boss recently bought an ACER Aspire 5535 laptop with pre installed vista home premium.
He wants me to delete vista and install xp, cause he is used to xp os, from his previous laptop

I have used the ee-recovery management and made a a backup dvd of the os, as requested by the system.


It has 250 gb sata hd in 2 partitions:
c: 80 gb
d: 110 gb (that is odd, it is more than 250, now that i think about it)
No Floppy

Actions Taken:

1 . I want to format c and install win xp.
2.I have downloaded all drivers from acer.
3. i changed the boot sequence at bios, so dvd rom boots first.

PROBLEM:
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When i enter the win xp cd to install, the process starts, and just before i get to the screen where I can choose to repair or to forma, i get a blue screen and a msg:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

if this is the first time you see this screen.....

check for viruses......

Technical information:
**STOP: 0X00000FB..........."

I understand that VISTA doesnt let me to downgrade to xp. When i take the xp installation cd out,
vista loads as usual

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1 Am i doing something wrong?
The installation xp cd is working, cause i ve used it before on desktops.
Moreover, i used another xp installtion cd with sata+raid support but gor the same screen.

2. i have downloaded from acer all drivers for the laptop for win xp. one of them was

SATA AHCI Driver. How do i use this one? should i somehow incorporate it to the xp installation cd?
Am i gonna be asked for this specific driver?

3. am i gonna lose the second partition? this is the first time that i am replacing vista with xp
without a floppy disk. If the 2nd partition is lost(110 gb) (which is EMPTY now ), i gues i will have only one partition c: (250 gb)
Then i can use Partiotion Magic and create the second one.

If someone could give me step by step info on how to do the new install, it would be great

thanks guys

Do you have AHCI disabled in the bios? If not then you have to install the SATA AHCI Driver via a floppy during the xp install when it asks for extra drivers.

"Press F6 if you need to install a 3rd party SCSI or RAID driver." This is when you need to install the AHCI driver.

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PROBLEM SOLVED

i changed it to IDE , everything works fine.

Right now i am formating the c partition, and i will be installing XP soon.

After the installation completes (and since i have the driver), what is the procedure to change back the BIOS setting to AHCI, Do i still need to buy a usb floppy drive, or can i do it through a usb key?

I would really appreciate it if you go me through the steps.

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.p...897&hl=ahci

Thanks guys,

everything works fine.

i will follow the link and get this done also.

Am i gonna have a problem, i mean is it gonna crash of affect the performance if i leave the setting to : IDE?

Nothing will happen if you leave it to IDE... AHCI is supposed to improve the disc's performance but I didn't notice any difference in the transfer rates..