Author Topic: Dual Boot Issue  (Read 446 times)

Offline rkanjl

  • Copper Member
  • **
  • Posts: 143
Dual Boot Issue
« on: June 27, 2009, 01:00:36 PM »
I have a Gateway T-1628 laptop with an AMD Turion 64X2 2GHz processor and 3GB of memory.  It came pre-installed with Vista Home Premium.  I am trying to set it up to dual boot with XP (I want to download Aces High on the XP side).  I created my partition and tried to install XP only to discover that XP doesn't have drivers for SATA hard drives.  My laptop is out of warranty and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay Gateway 65.00 (or whatever it is) an hour to tell me what driver I need so XP will see my hard drive.  It looks as though I will have to slipstream the correct driver into my XP disc but I can't find any info on which driver will work, if anyone can help I surely would appreciate it.  I really don't want to mess up my Vista experimenting with this.  Thanks all,

rkanjl
« Last Edit: June 27, 2009, 01:03:58 PM by rkanjl »
Proudly flying with the 332nd Flying Mongrels

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money".  Margaret Thatcher

"I'm sure as hell not a killer, but combat flying is like a game, and a guy likes to come out on top."  Maj. George E. Preddy

Offline TheZohan

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 587
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2009, 02:09:01 PM »
download the drivers for your sata and when you go to load XP hit F6 and put the disc in and viola!

Offline gpwurzel

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3836
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2009, 02:41:11 PM »
Rkanjl, check this link out - might prove useful

http://en.kioskea.net/faq/sujet-2544-installing-windows-xp-on-a-sata-hard-drive

hth,

Wurzel
I'm the worst pilot ingame ya know!!!

It's all unrealistic crap requested by people who want pie in the sky actions performed without an understanding of how things work and who can't grasp reality.


Offline MrRiplEy[H]

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 11633
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2009, 04:31:54 AM »
download the drivers for your sata and when you go to load XP hit F6 and put the disc in and viola!

Might be a bit hard considering most laptops lack 3.5" floppy bay. XP is really stone age in this aspect.

Slipstreaming is the way to go. Find out which SATA controller your laptop uses and download the driver directly from the manufacturers webpage.
Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone

Offline Ghosth

  • AH Training Corps (retired)
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8497
      • http://332nd.org
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2009, 06:07:43 AM »
Much easier if you can install the XP side first, then after its up and stable install or reinstall vista.


Offline TheZohan

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 587
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2009, 11:39:48 AM »
you can use a thumb drive or burn to a CD ..

Offline Sincraft

  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 691
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2009, 10:38:33 PM »
good luck with that. Gateway's drivers suck.  Try to find out what controller is used, and hope the manufacturer has the sata drivers.
When you go to setup xp, pres f6 to install 3rd party drivers (it will prompt you, but be quick)  Have an external drive ready like a floppy drive with the drivers on it.

If I were you, I would just download the windows 7 beta and be done with it.  Much better than vista and no probs with ah2


Offline rkanjl

  • Copper Member
  • **
  • Posts: 143
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2009, 10:17:03 PM »
Thanks everyone for the input, you've given me some good stuff to check out.  Here's holding my breath and fingers crossed, we'll see what happens.  After all, what can go wrong, it's Microsoft!  :D

rkanjl
Proudly flying with the 332nd Flying Mongrels

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money".  Margaret Thatcher

"I'm sure as hell not a killer, but combat flying is like a game, and a guy likes to come out on top."  Maj. George E. Preddy

Offline llama

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 819
      • http://www.warrenernst.com/
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2009, 04:37:56 PM »
From reading these replies, it is very clear to me that some of the respondents have never done this before, and as a result are giving bad, or flat out incorrect advice.

THeZohan says:
"download the drivers for your sata and when you go to load XP hit F6 and put the disc in and viola!"
and
"you can use a thumb drive or burn to a CD .. "

Unfortunately, this is all wrong.

Windows XP will ONLY accept SATA drivers during installation from either a Floppy Disk (that's what you get by pressing F6 at installation time), or if they are slipstreamed into the installation disc itself. Period. On a computer that's about 3 years old or newer, you can use a USB floppy disk drive with the SATA drivers on the floppy disk. Basically, if you can boot a DOS boot floppy from a USB floppy drive, then XP will be able to read SATA drivers from it. Otherwise, it won't.

Vista has a lot of shortcomings, but one area is has XP beat is that it can scan all media types for SATA (and other) drivers, ranging from floppies, CDs/DVDs, thumbdrives, and even other hard drive partitions.

Ghosth writes:
"Much easier if you can install the XP side first, then after its up and stable install or reinstall vista."

Not true. Installing XP after installing Vista takes one or two extra steps. It is easy.

The problem here is that XP's bootloader doesn't know anything about Vista, so after you partition the hard drive and install XP, there's no way to select the Vista partition at boot time.

To fix this, just boot into XP and download and install VistaBootPro. It will restore Vista's boot menu and add XP to it in about 3 seconds. VistaBootPro used to be free and is now $10, but the free version is still floating around, such as here:

http://freeloaded.net/vistabootpro-320/

Full instructions are here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/install-windows-xp-on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/

Finally, to get SATA drivers, I would suggest the the following:

In Vista, run HWiNFO32, downloadable from http://www.hwinfo.com/ and it should tell you exactly what hardware and chipsets you've got in that thing. Then start googling and downloading them from sources other than Gateway, since they provide next to nothing.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

-Llama


Interesting server at 69.12.181.171

Offline Ghosth

  • AH Training Corps (retired)
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8497
      • http://332nd.org
Re: Dual Boot Issue
« Reply #9 on: July 01, 2009, 06:50:13 AM »
I said it was "easier" not impossible.

As a general rule it is easier to install the older OS first.
But whatever.