Rolling back from Vista to XP on a 9205us.

[Mick Phipps]

Ok, i'm going to shoot myself in the head if I don't get this resolved. I am so irritated at HP since buying this laptop that it sickens me to deal with this every day.

I SIMPLY WANT TO INSTALL A VALID XP-HOME OS ON MY 9205us laptop. It has this Vista on it and I purchased this as a high dollar laptop, I had lots of choices. I nearly went with the Sony Vaio but always swore by HP and Compaq products. So, foolish me, I buy this thing and now 50% of my software for music and video recording is not working. They are not Vista compatible.

I know that HP refuses to assist a customer with this from my (already) attempts. So, I am going to ask a simple question that hopefully someone will have the intelligence to help and be understanding enough to appreciate how frustrated I am.

I put the wXP-Home CD into the lightscribe stock burner and i've checked the phoenix bios to be sure the cd rom is first boot device. Yet, it refuses to load my OS from the cd drive. If you can't tell me how to revert back to XP can you at least help a paying customer how to get my wXP OS to load into my laptop? It seems to just ignore the cd and always loads to the hard drive with that vista on it. I hate vista and swear to God if I don't get someone to help me with this i'm selling this laptop on ebay and will never buy another HP or Compaq product of value ever again. I am sooo irrirated about this. I am asking this forum because your helpdesk refuses to answer my email when I ask to roll back to XP. So, i'm posing this as a cd rom issue instead. Help me get the wXP cd to acknowledge, i'll tend to the rest and deal with the drivers that's online. Man, i'm tired of this. I have purchased 2 brand new software programs which are games. They don't load or work under compatibility mode. I have software that is a few thousand dollars that is not vista compatible. Man, what a pain! For those that have a heart, thanks for your input. I've searched on this, emailed, posted in forums and finally went thru 10 links to find this forum. So, I registered and am trying it this way. Thanks to those with a heart. To those who have no heart and profit is your deal, don't whine when your customer base turns on you in the next few years because of this vista.

To clarify, I was mislead by the store associate that I could "EASILY" roll back to wXP or I would have never bought this thing. I told him I had a valid XP that I bought, no problem he says. No comment!

[BMcL23]

Hi, Mick
I have run into similar problems loading Win XP Home on a Vista upgraded system. I have used the procedure on both notebooks and desktops, both HP and "other" manufacturer's products!!

The easiest way is a clean install, with reinstall of all my software programs. I assume you have all your data safely backed up?? Good!

This requires a floppy drive that you can boot from - I used a USB unit. Go to the following site and download the correct WinXP install utility:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=Install%20WinXP&DisplayLang=en

For XP Home, #180. For XP Pro, #159.

This will lead you thru making a 6 disk floppy installation set.

When you are booting the system to start the installation, go to "setup" (F2?) and check if your CD and hard drives are an IDE, SATA, or PATA. Reset your boot order to Floppy drive first.

I had my installation CD in the drive, but you must boot from floppy disk #1, and follow the on screen instructions, loading each disk as instructed. During the later stages of the preinstall, it will ask if you need ACH/Raid or SATA driver support. If you say yes, it will ask you to install the disk. Just click "Yes" or OK - (I can't remember which), it will load the drivers, then it will take you to your installation program.

From there, Good luck. Mine works better than ever!!!

Bruce McLeod