Terrific website.  I found it today researching this topic.

I bought a new Dell computer with Vista (my only choice)  I also purchased a copy of XP pro 64.

After reading the rad installation guide I realized there is more work to what I want to accomplish than I assumed there would be (inserting the XP disk the first time I turned on the computer.)

The computer came with a disk of the drivers.

I have the following questions:

What should I do to get rid of Vista before I intall XP?
Should I depend on the disk of drivers I received or do I need to fish for them online?
Is there anything specific to this task I should know about before I start?

You guys are based in Laguna?  If you are willing to come to east LA, and aren't afraid of real radiation, I can give you a free 64 channel helical whole body CT scan and interpret it.  Or a cardiac scan, whatever you need.  (Since I don't have any knowledge to give back in this forum.)

Thanks.

If you want to get rid of Vista and install XP, I would recommend you reformat the drive and then install XP.  

The drivers on the disk that was provided are most likely for Vista, since that is what shipped with the computer.  XP includes basic drivers for most of what you will need to get basic functionality, but you will probably have to go online to get better drivers and fill in the gaps.  Most drivers for WinXP are easy to find.

The members of this forum are scattered all over the world.

wrote on Mar 7^th, 2007 at 5:01am:

"... Is there anything specific to this task I should know about before I start?..."

If I were setting out to do what you have outlined above, I would perform those tasks outlined below:


El_Pescador wrote on Jan 8^th, 2006 at 6:15pm:

To give your current HDD a thorough purging, then here is one way to do it: (1) generate a 3.5 inch boot disk in a WIN 98SE environment; (2) load whatever Norton SystemWorks or Ghost 2003 CD you have onhand and use the SEARCH feature to look for GDISK.EXE (it is in D:\SUPPORT\GHOST on my PC); and (3) mount the floppy boot disk and use the SEND TO feature to copy GDISK.EXE over to the A: drive. When you are ABSOLUTELY sure that you have a secure image to restore from, start off by booting up with the modified floppy and repeatedly using the following command in iterative fashion: GDISK n /STATUS to ascertain which Arabic numeral ('1' through '3' in my world, with '3' being the correct HDD) represents the target HDD for renovation.  Next, use the command: GDISK 3 /DISKWIPE to totally obliterate the entire disk, partitions, partition table, MBR, and all used or unused space on the external HDD. Then, boot up with manufacturer-provided CD software such as 'Seagate DiscWizard for Windows' to target and initialize the "scrubbed" disk in preparation for whatever subsequent restoration procedures you deem fit.  Admittedly, there are probably well over a dozen approaches to arriving at this point - this just happens to be one that works great for me..."

EP :'(