HP DV6648SE - Need help installing Win XP Pro

[sandiegoislandboy]

I recently purchased a HP DV6648SE laptop from BestBuy, one problem, it came preloaded with Vista Home Premium preloaded.

I want to remove Vista and install Win XP Pro, one problem, when starting the installation process it is unable to find the hard drive (issue with SATA hard drives?).

Has anyone successfully installed Win XP Pro on this laptop?

Going to HP's website they have a few XP drivers listed for this model so I assumed it would be easy, how wrong I was.

Is there any way to get past the hard drive detection screen? What drivers could I put on a thumb drive to get Windows to recognize the hard drive? Do I have to use a floppy drive?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[BigPoppa]

1. You need to have a floppy so you can load SATA drivers at the beginning of XP setup (push F6 at the beginning of the XP blue screen). The XP setup doesn't much like USB thumbdrives. Vista howver does.
2. The drivers can be a pain in the ass to find, usually they're intel based 82801.
3. Create your damn Vista restore discs before attempting the XP install.
4. Finding drivers can be a huge nightmare. Get cozy with unknown device finder, www.pcidatabase.com, and www.driverguide.com.

POSSIBLE:
Some of the Vista loaded HPs have an option in the BIOS to run the SATA as native IDE. This allows you to avoid having to load the SATA drivers at the initial XP setup. Disclaimer: I'm not sure what, if any, performance change you'll see with this mode. I'd only run it if you can't find a SATA driver.