Grr.. trying to "upgrade" from Vista to XP

[Talon]

I just got a new laptop, which naturally has Vista pre-loaded. For school I need linux, so I'd like to ditch Vista and build a dual-boot XP & Fedora system. I've already created recovery disks using Vista.

Problem is, neither my XP install CD, nor the open-source tool GParted will detect my harddrive. I think I've figured out why, my laptop's HDD uses the SATA interface instead of the conventional ATA interface. I didn't think it would be a problem when I bought it, silly me.

I've done some searching, but I haven't yet found any info that addresses this specific problem. I've found some mentions that I need to put XP SATA drivers on a floppy disk, but my laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Anyone else have this issue?

[Broomjockey]

Every single person who tries to install XP on a SATA HDD has that problem. If you're lucky, you might be able to solve it with a USB Floppy Drive, if you can find one, and your BIOS will let you boot from it. Otherwise, I'm not sure how to hook up a floppy drive to a laptop cheaply.

[Talon]

Well that solution was surprisingly easy, for once.

I changed the SATA controller mode in BIOS to "Compatibility", now my WinXP CD recognizes the HDD. Gparted still doesn't recognize, but at least I have something to work with.

So now the question is, after I partition the drive should I install WinXP first, or Fedora Core 9 first?

[Broomjockey]

Usually it's the better idea for the Microsoft OS's to go on first. Linux usually has fewer issues being put on afterwards, whereas Windows will sometimes wipe out partitions just for giggles.

[Pedersen]

Broomjockey has it 100%.

The only option for gparted, though, is not as fun: GParted does not detect the hard drives on its own. The system's kernel does. This means that the kernel is failing to detect the hard drive.

Best recommendatiions: Use the XP installation to do an appropriate sized partition for XP. Get the absolute most recent kernel you can (usually, this will be Ubuntu) and install using that. Unfortunately, this also means installing Ubuntu instead of Fedora.

Outside of that, if you can get access to a command prompt when trying to run gparted, run the command lspci and look for any lines that says unknown. Take the PCI id (the left most column) and plug it into google along with the terms lspci driver.

That might tell you how far along you need to be on the kernel revision.

Or, post it here, and I'll try to help out with it, too (though, if you do, please post the entire output of lspci).

[Talon]

Uh okay that was wierd.

Fedora Core 9 would not recognize my HDD even in compatibility mode. On a wierd hunch I switched the controller back to the default mode, and now Fedore does recognize the HDD. Huh?

Whatever, I've tinkered with this enough for now. Time for some jogging.

[Eric the Grey]

Is anybody else tired of hearing people talk about "Upgrading" to an older version of the OS? It's NOT an upgrade folks. Not by any stretch of the word. Yes, it may work better for you, but it's still NOT an upgrade. /rant

Usually it's the better idea for the Microsoft OS's to go on first. Linux usually has fewer issues being put on afterwards, whereas Windows will sometimes wipe out partitions just for giggles.

I agree with this here, but will add one thing to it.

Use the XP installer to partition the drive the way you want it to be before you install XP, then Install XP on the first partition. The rest you can assign when you install Linux as you need them.

When I upgraded my laptop's hard drive, I did this, and it's made for a very solid system. I partition as follows:

1, 20-gig partition (Windows XP)
1, 20-gig partition (Linux - all of it, no fancy partitioning schemes, YMMV)
1, 72-gig partition (The rest of the 120-gig drive) formatted NTFS as a data drive that both Linux and Windows can share. I mount only this partition from Linux by default so I can access my documents and music from Linux)

You may want to partition differently for Linux, such as a separate swap partition and/or / and /usr partitions, that's all up to you. My take on it is to do all partitioning before you install, so that there is no chance (however slight) of messing up the existing data.

Oh, and I'd go with Ubuntu as well. The last time I tried Fedora (granted, it was a long time ago) it was so bloated that I had trouble getting it to run...

Edit: You may want to make certain your XP is fully up to date, so it recognizes the SATA drives all right before switching your compatibility mode off in bios. I don't know IF it will make a difference, but you never know....

Eric the Grey

[Talon]

Sometimes I hate computers. Particularly when they give inconsistent results.

Earlier today I tried booting with the Fedora 9 DVD, with the SATA controller set to default, and the installer was able to recognize the SATA drive. I got the GUI installer started before I quit. At the time I still had Vista, which I wanted to be rid of before installing linux.

I deleted all the existing partitions, created a new one and installed XP on it. I spent most of the day updating XP up to Service Pack 3, but it still won't boot unless I use SATA compatibility mode in BIOS.

Whatever, I don't care as long as it works. Only now Fedora is back to not recognizing my HDD, regardless of SATA mode. AARGH!!

I guess next step is to manually install new SATA drivers. Microsoft update is no help, nor is Toshiba's support site. Either that, or hope for better luck with Ubuntu. Or better yet, get some sleep and figure this out later.

[LostMyMind]

Every single person who tries to install XP on a SATA HDD has that problem.

That's strange, I have 2 SATA hard drives and I installed XP straight from the CD with no tweaking. Even set up a dual-boot XP (one for gaming, the other for programming) No problems whatsoever. I've never had a problem installing XP on SATA hard-drive....

Is anybody else tired of hearing people talk about "Upgrading" to an older version of the OS? It's NOT an upgrade folks. Not by any stretch of the word. Yes, it may work better for you, but it's still NOT an upgrade. /rant

While not going into the "hate/like/love Vista" war. While technically Vista is an upgrade to XP. It's an geek joke to say "I'm upgrading to XP from Vista". And nope, never get tired of hearing people calling XP an upgrade to Vista.

While Vista works fine for my parent's computer (for the most part), which they use for my father's photography business. I personally can't stand the bloatness of Vista.

Microsoft update is no help, nor is Toshiba's support site. Either that, or hope for better luck with Ubuntu. Or better yet, get some sleep and figure this out later.

Is there an BIOS update for that laptop? It might be as simple as needing a BIOS flash.

[Talon]

That's strange, I have 2 SATA hard drives and I installed XP straight from the CD with no tweaking. Even set up a dual-boot XP (one for gaming, the other for programming) No problems whatsoever. I've never had a problem installing XP on SATA hard-drive....

While not going into the "hate/like/love Vista" war. While technically Vista is an upgrade to XP. It's an geek joke to say "I'm upgrading to XP from Vista". And nope, never get tired of hearing people calling XP an upgrade to Vista.

While Vista works fine for my parent's computer (for the most part), which they use for my father's photography business. I personally can't stand the bloatness of Vista.

Is there an BIOS update for that laptop? It might be as simple as needing a BIOS flash.

Was your XP CD loaded with Service Pack 2? If so that's probably why. My XP CD is the first build, drivers so old they don't recognize SATA drives.

The only thing about vista that caught my eye was the network connections seemed very simple to setup. Other than that it just struck me as XP Service Pack 4B. B for Bloat.

There might be a BIOS update, but that's not my problem for the moment.

Ubuntu finally saved the day, it was able to recognize my SATA drive in compatibility mode. Both XP and Ubuntu are finally installed, after many hours of watching-paint-dry aka progress bars climbing. I only used a 512 MB swap space, figured that was enough. I haven't tried booting Ubuntu in SATA ahci mode, but I don't care. From what I've read it makes little difference.

So now that I've blown the whole weekend working on this, maybe now I can actually get some schoolwork done.

[MadMike]

Was your XP CD loaded with Service Pack 2? If so that's probably why. My XP CD is the first build, drivers so old they don't recognize SATA drives.

My copy of XP has SP2 included, but it still couldn't recognize the SATA drive when I first got it. I had to make one of those stupid driver floppies from the CD they included. Would it have killed them to include a damn floppy? And what if that had been my only computer, and I had been unable to proceed because I had already taken out the old hardware? Companies really piss me off sometimes.

I'm thinking maybe it depends on the motherboard, at least partly, because when I upgraded my board later, it recognized the drives without a problem.

[LostMyMind]

Was your XP CD loaded with Service Pack 2? If so that's probably why. My XP CD is the first build, drivers so old they don't recognize SATA drives.

Nope, mine is XP Pro with no service packs.

Ubuntu finally saved the day, it was able to recognize my SATA drive in compatibility mode. Both XP and Ubuntu are finally installed, after many hours of watching-paint-dry aka progress bars climbing. I only used a 512 MB swap space, figured that was enough. I haven't tried booting Ubuntu in SATA ahci mode, but I don't care. From what I've read it makes little difference.

So now that I've blown the whole weekend working on this, maybe now I can actually get some schoolwork done.

Well, grats on the success of getting your "upgrade" done.

I'm thinking maybe it depends on the motherboard, at least partly, because when I upgraded my board later, it recognized the drives without a problem.

I think it's probably both. The BIOS and the motherboard. Since booting is really in the BIOS control. I'm referring to the selection of which drive to check to boot from, etc.... The motherboard only because the hard-drive controller is embedded now days.

If it boots from the hard-drive and XP chokes while loading drivers. Then it's XP fault. However, personally I've never had that happen to me (without actual hardware failure).

[otakuneko]

re "upgrade" from Vista to XP: Let's just say that AFAIC, there's a big difference between "update" and "upgrade"

re Linux partitioning, I find it more comforting to have /home at least as a separate partition, preferably even on a separate drive if possible.