Unable to install Windows XP on Laptop

[daydayday]

Hello,

I do think this thread probably does not belong in this forum (Windows BSOD, Freezing, Restarting Help) but I cannot find a more fitting one here on TechSpot. If there is one, please direct me to it.

This is a slightly different problem following the one present in the following thread:
Unable to boot Windows (error 0251 ; TMP problem

After all the pain I've endured in the previous problem, I ended having to re-install Vista onto my Laptop, installed most drivers, everything is fine. But I do miss XP considering Vista isn't all the best for gaming, being what I am quite interested about.

Just like before, I am unable to install Windows XP onto my laptop, and the reason is still unknown to me.

I would insert the Windows XP CD, load all the files, when prompt, I hit Enter and F8, and it tells me the setup did not detect any hard drives to install XP onto. Yet, I am able to install Windows Vista from a bootable USB.

I have tried installing XP from USB but it tells me I'm missing boot files (or a file*)

As stated in the previous thread, my laptop's cmos battery could be dead, my harddrive can be partially defective or my laptop's SATA cables are. One thing I am quite sure of is that my CMOS battery is dead, as my system prompts me with bad cmos configuration (or something of that sort) every day when I turn on my laptop, and it resets my time and date to a default one (midnight and a date from 2007).

Today, I replaced (I might have had a few difficulties doing this and it might not have worked properly) my laptop's CMOS battery with one I took from an unused Desktop computer, so far all seems well, but I'll wait for the next day when I turn my laptop on to be sure.

1. Right now, I'm wondering what may be the problem, and what can be causing this Windows XP installation malfunction. Is it my laptop's optical drive, CMOS battery, SATA cable, SATA hard drive or something else?

Here are some information on my laptop, probably not the exact ones, but it should be quite similar enough, mostly the same parts.

Any help appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Day

EDIT: I'm planning on buying a new Hard drive in order to fix my Desktop computer, and it might be a 2.5 inch Solid State Drive. And once I'm done using it to fix the Desktop computer, I might replace my laptop's hard drive with the SSD, as I am suspecting the Hard Drive to be causing the problem stated above. I'm only worried about the lifespan of the current SSD available in the market, so I might end up getting a 2.5 inch hard drive instead as SSD are also very expensive.

2. Do you think this will also help solve the problem stated above?

 

[Tmagic650]

You have to install SATA drivers at at the very beginning of the XP install. Here's the skinny:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

 

[daydayday]

You have to install SATA drivers at at the very beginning of the XP install. Here's the skinny:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

Hello Tmagic650,

Again I thank you for helping me through my first problem, and again for this current one.

I found this from my laptop manufacturer's driver support website, not entirely sure if this is what I need, though :
[Chipset/IMSM/XP/Vista] LG Notebook Intel Matrix Storage Manager (SATA AHCI Controller) Driver

I tried to locate the driver files from the unzipped folder, downloaded from the link above. But it did not work, there are no .inf files in it. Am I looking in the wrong place for such SATA drivers? I browsed quite a bit for them, but that's pretty much the closest I got to, as for finding SATA drivers. This is maybe because LG isn't all that well known for laptop manufacturing, I guess.

Thanks,
Day

 

[daydayday]

I ordered a 2.5" Hard Drive.

And I still can't find the way to use what you have suggested, likely because I'm slow. I can't find the .inf driver files either, if anyone knows where I can find such files for SATA Hard Drives, I'd really appreciate it if you let me know where.

Thanks,
Day

EDIT: Oh I just remembered... I think I was able to format the same laptop HDD to XP using my Desktop computer before, and it would run on the Desktop computer, but not on my laptop. If I remember well, it can't detect the HDD after it's formatted to XP. Why is it so?

 

[Tmagic650]

I didn't know LG made laptops. I use their Blu-Ray players I had made a XP install slipstreamed disc that included SATA drivers for reverting Vista installs to XP, and I had no problems at all. I thought my posted Softpedia instructions would do the trick for you

Maybe this:
http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstream-sata-drivers-into-xp-cd/

 

[daydayday]

I didn't know LG made laptops. I use their Blu-Ray players I had made a XP install slipstreamed disc that included SATA drivers for reverting Vista installs to XP, and I had no problems at all. I thought my posted Softpedia instructions would do the trick for you

Maybe this:
http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstream-sata-drivers-into-xp-cd/

Yay! Thanks again Tmagic650,

With the standard SATA drivers from the link you provided above, I was able to finally put this laptop back to XP, things are way smoother.

Just wondering, do you have any idea why I could format the laptop to XP before, but not recently, without the SATA drivers? (I might have used a different disk though, but is there anything else that would cause this?)

Thank you very much Tmagic650,
Day