Vista is annoying... need XP

[Loofer]

I recently bought a new laptop 2 months ago from Currys. It came
pre-loaded with Visa Home Premium.

I thought this would be a plus but have since found that theres some hardware that just aren't compatible.

I bought a USB to IDE cable on eBay a few weeks ago in he hope of eing able to hook the laptop upto my old HDD from PC. OS wouldn't recognise/find drivers.

I was condsidering buying a Vag Tacho cable but I believe that wont work with Vista either.

I've tried to craete a partition on laptop HDD so I can have XP loaded on there. Can't create partition properly... throwing up errors

AAArrgghh.

Any ideas people. I'm considering jus buying a cheap (upto £50) laptop on eBay just for XP and can use VAG Tacho.

[Eshrules]

I recently bought a new laptop 2 months ago from Currys. It came
pre-loaded with Visa Home Premium.

I thought this would be a plus but have since found that theres some hardware that just aren't compatible.

I bought a USB to IDE cable on eBay a few weeks ago in he hope of eing able to hook the laptop upto my old HDD from PC. OS wouldn't recognise/find drivers.

I was condsidering buying a Vag Tacho cable but I believe that wont work with Vista either.

I've tried to craete a partition on laptop HDD so I can have XP loaded on there. Can't create partition properly... throwing up errors

AAArrgghh.

Any ideas people. I'm considering jus buying a cheap (upto £50) laptop on eBay just for XP and can use VAG Tacho.

have you tried using a partition manager? i daren't use windows own, too risky for my liking. if you've only just bought the laptop, im sure if you went back and asked them, they'd give you a copy of XP licensed. i've tried vista myself, but the one thing that put me off, was its inability to support my 5.1 surround sound, a MUST when i have my tunes on!

i dont think vagtacho has the driver support for Vista yet, although i cant actually see why... i wouldnt want you to risk it though but just thinking about it, its only a comms cable, drivers are more or less universal

[Eshrules]

just as a side note, i bought a cheapy laptop, a compaq armada, only has 256 of ram, but its fine for what i use it for, i run my vagcom, tacho and can commander off it.... £55 delivered to my door (eBay)

[Loofer]

just as a side note, i bought a cheapy laptop, a compaq armada, only has 256 of ram, but its fine for what i use it for, i run my vagcom, tacho and can commander off it.... £55 delivered to my door (eBay)

I think I might just do that Carl. It's a shame really because I've got a laptop from work aswell which has XP on it but I have limited user priviledges so that prohibitms me from installing software/drivers. Administrator wouldn't allow that even if I asked.


I'll just be patient and keep an eye out on eBay. Theres some for £30+ but they are ancient. I'm taking 300Mhz CPU and 64mb RAM

[Eshrules]

I think I might just do that Carl. It's a shame really because I've got a laptop from work aswell which has XP on it but I have limited user priviledges so that prohibitms me from installing software/drivers. Administrator wouldn't allow that even if I asked.


I'll just be patient and keep an eye out on eBay. Theres some for £30+ but they are ancient. I'm taking 300Mhz CPU and 64mb RAM

LOL i just checked mine... mines only a 400 mhz, dont forget it can still run xp. i have 2000 running on mine, and although slow, it does the job

[Sam]

Download a Linux Live CD and use GParted to partition your HDD.

Ubuntu is my favourite but there are many flavours out there

[dessimpson]

I got my little laptop from flea-bay too. £180, p3 1.2 Ghz and 512mb ram.

I also threw 200 genuine copies of XP Pro into a shredder this afternoon too

[Loofer]

Download a Linux Live CD and use GParted to partition your HDD.

Ubuntu is my favourite but there are many flavours out there

I've already won a laptop on eBay (£42 delivered) 233 Mhz, 96MB RAM and 4GB HDD

I would still rather have XP on my own machine.

So I've used Live CD/GParted and managed to partition (primary) 5GB of space. This shows in System manager but dosn't show in My Computer as separate drive.

Does it need to be a separate volume for me to install/boot XP from?
How do I do that (create volume)?
Whats the difference between volume and partition?

[gazza57]

eezupp, you're right,
All versions of the office software for XP won't run on a vista platform or runs but with problems.
Surprised this has been allowed to reach the shops, getting a cheap laptop for your VAG tacho seems a sensible strategy
Gazza57

[Loofer]

I'm in desparate trouble.

Iv partitioned the drive and managed to install XP on there which loads up fine, though I cant get on the net (currently using work laptop to write here). the laptop has built in wireless. Dont know how to get XP to recognise.

I cant boot up from Vista now, even though I know its still on the HDD. How can I get the option to choose OS at boot up.

I know its something to do with the 'boot.ini' file. Because I've played around with that.
Alternatively:
IF anybody has VISTA then please could you copy the contents of this file boot.ini and paste here

You can access the file by
Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> System
-> Advanced tab
Then under Startup & Recovery, click Settings
then click Edit

or
1.Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
3. Under System Startup, click Edit.


I'm desparate here