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reformat troubles

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by cheesypoof_394

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i have 2 lap tops ill start with the older of the 2 its a dell latitude cpx j and i am trying to reformat it with a copy of windows xp home edition and again and again it fails to work when i go to delete the old partition it tells me the partition contains files needed for installation is that because the hard drive is to small its only a 6.01 gig hard drive please any assistance would be infinitley appreciated

the second is a hp 550 currently with a copy of windows vista i am trying to downgrade it with a copy of windows xp pro for a customer and when you go to the boot order menu and change it to cd drive first and go to format it it wont find the hard drive but it boots up just fine so it is finding it there so i tried slaving it to anather computer and formatting it that way it told me i didnt have permission to format it so i slaved it to the laptop itself with the help of an adapter and it wqould recognize it then and get through the formatting part then it would resart to install widows and give me the blue screen of death i am very frustrated with these problems they frustrate me to no end if anyone could help me please email me or call me or whatever i need help if you have windows live messenger you can message me that email is also my windows live messenger id so please dont hesitate to bug me i greatly need assistance

16 replies

by tardcart

On the first laptop; There could be a number of problems, but with it only having a 6.01GB drive the age if the drive itself could be a source of problem. Buy a new drive and start from there. Chances are however, a machine that old isn't going to meet the minimum system requirements to run XP. Will it run...yes, will it run well...no.

On the second laptop; Since Vista came out there came a point where you no longer had the option for Vista or XP on a new laptop and could only have Vista. When that happened, most manufacturers stopped writing XP drivers for the proprietary hardware focusing solely on Vista drivers. We've bought a number of laptops that we tried to downgrade only to find out the hard way there weren't drivers available. Now, with the number of people that loath Vista, numerous laptop manufacturers are offering a downgrade option when you purchase, but that doesn't do much for those produced in the "gap". The best bet might be to suck it up and but a new laptop with the downgrade option and ditch the other on ebay.

by cheesypoof_394

well the older model has windows xp currently installed on it its a customers computer he just wants a fresh install of it to restore back to default it was origanaly designed for windows 200 i think but the other will only recognize the hard drive if its slaved and will only attempt to format if its slaved to the laptop itself with the adapter
so getting new ones is out of the question and they were both paid for in advance so i cant tell the person that it wont work without my boss having to give a refund it was him who said we could do it not me i just get saddled with the grunt task of making it happen so please if you know anyone who might be able to help me pass it on that email is also my windows messenger id so i could chat in real time with someone anything to get these laptops done im so frustrated i wanna throw them out the window but can

by thumbsup2

It frustrates me to no end to try and read someone's post who doesn't use any capitalization, punctuation or a spell checker. But, I'll try..........

With the older laptop, how big is the drive in question?

With the newer laptop, you'll need SATA drivers for the drive. Durring install, it Windows should ask you to put in the drivers for the HDD. You will need to have these handy on some sort of removable media like a floppy or a CD.

by tardcart

That was the problem we ran into. There weren't drivers available that we could find. We tried nForce and Silicon Image drivers just for S&Gs but never found any that worked.

Check HPs site and see if they have a XP SATA driver for that model. If not...

by cheesypoof_394

it wont even let me get that far it lets me get to the formatting the drive part then stops me on the old on it says the partition contains files essential to the installation and wont let me go any further the newer one will let me format the drive but not install windows it gives me the blue screen of death on start up after it formats the drive for the installation

by older mycroft

With a [u]full stop[/u] and a [u]space[/u] and a [u]CAPITAL LETTER[/u] at the start of the next sentence, in every part of your text where you would STOP to DRAW BREATH.

That way, you might get a few more replies - otherwise folks will just skip past your post because they can't be bothered trying to decipher what they see.

by cheesypoof_394

I'm sorry if i don't feel like wasting the time for proper English I'm trying to get my computer fixed not take an English class

by older mycroft

You utter fool !

If the people you are trying to get the help FROM, cannot understand the cramped, unpunctuated style of your incessant drivel - you won't get any help because nobody has the time to figure out what you are saying.

That is my entire point! ;)

How would you be feeling if the answers were unreadable and full of nonsense????

by cheesypoof_394

well you say you find it so hard to read what i post how come the first person to send a message back understood it just fine but was just unable to assist in the way i would have liked. You see i have to go through the trouble of writing so much so that every aspect of the problem is known for the best results possible to be achieved. so think about that before you start calling people fools

by older mycroft

You're just educationally subnormal.

I'll bet your handwriting looks like something a pre-school child would scrawl with a fisted crayon.

People like you make me feel nothing but pity. Pity that I've answered you at all.

by cheesypoof_394

ya and people like you are just jerks who like to pick on people like me just because your smarter than me and know more than me when i come to ask for help all you can do is criticize me and make fun of the way i type so whatever i don't need your help wouldn't want it if you were the last it tech on earth

by older mycroft

Or maybe I [i]should[/i] say:

Try reading it without moving your lips! :^0

by seanferd

does the older laptop have a recovery partition that it thinks it needs to keep? OEM installs can be like that.

Can you give the exact error text so we could check on it?

Sorry, it's not meant to be an English class, but when people post as you do, it becomes difficult to read. And I've read A Clockwork Orange and Voice of the Fire, among other books written in non-standard language.

by tardcart

You need to find a bootable partition manager like Super Fdisk, Partition Magic etc. that supports SATA drives. Boot with that and nuke the partition.

Download the storage driver for the 550 notebook from HP. Run the .exe and extract to some place you'll easily find (i.e. desktop). In that folder click Winall then Drivers. Copy everything in that folder to a blank floppy.

Boot from the XP disk. As soon as the screen turns blue start hammering out the rhythm to Axel F on the F6 key to "install third party raid drivers". Slap in the floppy you just copied all the files to. Install everything on that disk it gives you the option to. Partition, format and enjoy.

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