How do I Reinstall XP

[Glenvern]

I currently run Vista which must be the slowest OS I have ever come across.

I would like to reinstall XP in its place but it won't recognise the HD.

What do I have to do enable XP to recognise the HD?

Can I uninstall Vista?

thanx..

[-pops-]

Can you explain the procedure you're using to do this install?

I don't know for certain but, it could well be that Vista won't allow a retrograde step such as you want without a full format of the drive.

You may have tried this but, place the XP disk in the CD drive, and then reboot the computer. Provided that CD is the first boot device this should over-ride any attempts by the system of booting into the current Windows version.

Regarding Vista being slow, I've not found this to be so. Is it the machine that is either intrinsically slow or insufficiently powerful to accommodate Vista?

[Boris]

Also, before starting make sure that there you have located XP drivers for all the devices you have. It is not 100% guaranteed that there will be - especially if you have a laptop.

If your H/D is SATA then you may need to install the appropriate drivers when prompted (F6) else it may not be recognised.

[Windowschase]

I've reinstalled 2000 many times and learned to have certain things prepared.

You need to save files you want to keep on disk or have the OEM disk, for some unknown reason I think Vista computers don't come with a disk?! Maybe its just the lap top.

You need a boot disk sold on Ebay that will wipe your drive. They all claim that the drive is not truly deleted when you do a regular format. I can't tell who's telling the truth but I think regular format does not delete fully and a virus attacks the system files and/or registry. The ultimate boot disk for windows (UBD4Win) is the best one, your supposed to download it and burn it yourself in order to be legal and it was not supposed to be sold on Ebay, the other $3 ones still work fine. But UBD4win can run a similar OS right from the disk and look at all your files on the HD without running the OS over there. It will allow you to save all the files you want to another drive. Windows came real close to making a program that would simply reinstall all the system files from a hidden source or two in DOS or right off your disk in case you got a virus, but noooooo. All the computer stores have a secret agreement to not sell boot disks.

Then you need your original disk with product key code. It should be a bootable disk so that it guides you through the rest of the set up after you set your Bios to boot from disk.

You need minimum of internet explorer 6 to function on the internet before you get on the internet. I have a disk with IE6 and the high encryption pack 128 bit. It's possible to find these downloads and check out "what others are downloading" down below the screen in case you want to keep more than just IE6 which you need to burn if you don't have it. If your computer is crashed from virus, it's still possible to get IE6 off the internet but google seems best to search well without crashing.

At this point click your windows update and take all the patches.

You need to reinstall all of your drivers for the sound, graphics card, Linksys etc. If you know you can get it off the internet then you don't need driver disk except for Linksys because that is the way to connect to the internet.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

A boot disk can be created by Windows; you don't need to buy it. Boot disks can also be downloaded from http://www.bootdisk.com/ not all are free though.

[Seshomaru Samma]

you don't need to 'uninstall' vista, your XP install will overwrite it

if your XP install media doesn't recognise the HD , you probably need to slipstream SATA drivers to it, look here

[fmw]

In my experience Vista won't allow you to downgrade. You need to install XP from scratch. I recommend deleting the current partition and starting over. Be sure to back up your data files.

Incidentally, Vista is actually a little faster than XP. The slowness you are experiencing involves the heavy use of graphics by Vista. You can turn some of it off (sidebar is one example.) Or, as another option you can upgrade to faster video processor. But the Vista kernel is actally faster than the XP kernel, contrary to popular opinion.