hi guys, i'm surrendered... i've been trying to install XP on mys vaio, cos i simply can't deal with Vista cos at the moment iz crapply slow and full of permission and other stuff i just don like it...
i want my XP sp2...but.........
i ve red tons of threads about it, i got the floppy drive, i got my sata driver found in the relative sony vaio website the one for my model, so no doubt about it, i got windows xp booting up, after F6 it asks for sata driver,press S, i fed him with the floppy tasty driver in it, it recognises it! yeah!
i can hear it's chewing the driver for some second and it tells me which one i prefer, the XP or the 2000, i go for the XP cos iz more nutritious, it chews it again a bit more this time, the bastard definitely likes it, i press enter
After a little more loading the next screenshot is to install xp by giving me 3 choices press enter or press R to restore or F3 to quit, obviously enter button will be my choice, i press it i'm about to swear and jump and smash my vaio
and what??

as i didnt load any F%&/()"g driver...i've done it a billion time maybe a bit less but nothing...

PLEASE IT'S THE THIRD FORUM I'M GOING THROUGH....I'M GONNA CHUCK THE LAPTOP OTHERWISE

What model Vaio?

hey bro im goin through the same thing iv made other topics on this so check mine out if i get answers

vaio ar31m

Well, there is NO info in your profile and I am tired of asking obvious questions today for information, so:

You may need a set of Sata drivers for XP for the Intel 945PM chipset (installed in the vaio ar31m laptop). If you have the desktop you didn't say....

They may be different from the Vista Sata drivers for that chipset.

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPro...31M&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VN AR Series

ok, i found the sata driver for XP in the vaio website...but nothing! basically i've downloaded the ar21m which has the same specs of my ar31m as the vaio techinicians suggested me, put sata driver on floppy F6, S, xp loads driver but same error as above...nothing has changed...
and they said we cant give any support if this doesn work...so what am i supposed to do? i got a few devices that work only with xp cos the vista drivers don exist...
can i install xp in a different way? like paste it on my hard driver somehow or something?

I think you need to identify the chipset on the mobo and find XP sata drivers for that chipset. Shouldn't metter where you get them I don't think.

1. You need to locate the chipset drivers for your board
2. you need to locate the sata drivers for your drive/controller

SATA drivers are installed when installing windows.

i've already got the sata driver for this chipset for xp, as i said above..

This is how I see it:

Your comp was 'designed' for Vista - the bios as well. Unless you had Vista in a Raid settup, you had 2 possible bios pre-settings, ie, either AHCI or IDE, for the S-ata drive.

In pre-Vista motherboards, if AHCI, you would need to install the AHCI driver from the floppy after you press 'F6'. If IDE, you wouldn't have to use F6 at all (the XP S-ata native drivers would be enough for the S-ata controller initialization).


Why this would change for Vista I have no idea. The fact that the manufacturer tells you to use the AR21M drivers on your
AR31M would suggest there IS a difference or they would have listed those same drivers on the AR31M site as being for XP.

Or perhaps they were, like many other companies, Vista-blind.

So, check into the bios settings - if you can, set the mobo bios to use S-ata as AHCI and then install those drivers.

gl

CCT your answer i's brilliant the best i've ever had so far, BUT....my bios even after the upgrade doesn't show any sign of AHCI, i got all the drivers found on the preinstall pack AHCI RAID SATA all that crap. but they are no good without as you said the preconfiguration in the bios..
The bios it's really plain,and oversimple you can change just stupid things like passwords or time or boot selection...that's all, what should i do at this point? sell the machine?

This post/site may have the answer: appears you must us the 'Raid' driver, not the Sata one;

http://club.vaio.sony.nl/clubvaio/nl/nl/forum/viewthread?thread=40576

thanks for the link, i've found the right driver in order to get winXP setup initializing, but as soon as i finish to format the HD, it askes me something else like: please insert the floppy labeled, Intel Matrix Storage Manager, which i can't get cos the name of the label it's too long to put in the floppy, plus i have something called Intel Matrix Storage Manager in the drivers pack but it's just an exe file so i can get the files to put on floppy, and also when it askes the additional driver it doesn't seem to read the floppy driver at all...unbelievable....

The Intel Matrix Storage Manager is the Raid driver set for the Intel Raid chipset afaik. Once you create the floppy, you can label it EXTERNALLY anything you want - DOS limits the internal label length.

what d u mean externally??i hav no idea...sorry
cos i ve tried command prompt or going to a: properties but the limit is always 11 charaters...

ok, first of all thanks for your support guys you ve been really patient and helpful...and...i need more help...the problem is gettin thinner, which happen when windows xp finishes to format the HD and it requests once again the driver Raid, but it can't find the floppy,
and that's why i thought it was the label issue, but it's not, it's just because it can't see the floppy....maybe cos it's usb?
i've check the bios and the USB boot it's enabled.

so in short: F6, S, request of Raid driver> loading done with no prob> request of HD to install windowsXp> request of formatting relative HD> request of files required for the installation and the first one appears to be the Raid, but the floppy is silent....

ok guys i think i got an idea...instead of using the bloody F6 and floppy, which is causing me a lot of troubles, i was thinking to copy those Raid drivers directly in the WinXp installation disk.

does anybody knows an easy way to recreate a windows xp inst cd with these extra files in?in which folder sould i put the drivers?
cheers