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dual booting Vista and XP on Dell Laptop

T

Tom Scruffy

Member
Hi guys, I've searched far and wide and can't come up with a solution to this issue (if any)

My father got a new Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop with Vista installed on it. His problem is that the reason he got the laptop was to use his camera equipment when photographing remotely and the camera equipment doesn't work with Vista, only XP.

He likes Vista also and wants to keep it, but see if he can dual boot XP on his laptop when doing his photography. I researched a number of forums with people claiming itis possible so I decided to try it.

My plan was to create a partition for the new XP system and then install it and then use EASYBCD to give me the choice of operating systems on start-up (Vista being the default). Since Vista is already on there and I don't have a new copy I don't want to erase it. On my desktop, I dual boot with Vista and Fedora-9 using EASYBCD and it works fine.

I went into the partition manager in his Vista system and shrunk his partition that has Vista. It told me I could have up to 77 GB to shrink it, so I chose to make a partition of 40 GB which should be adequate to load XP on and have some room to spare.

The problem is that the laptop is set-up with an Intel 82801HEM/HBM Sata AHCI Controller and Windows XP doesn't recognize this hdd setup without drivers. I went to the Intel site and downloaded the correct XP AHCI Sata drivers (iaStor.sys) and put them on a floppy disk. I have a USB floppy drive that will connect to the floppy-less laptop to install them in the beginning F6 prompt on XP's install.

When I begin the install, I set the BIOS to boot from the CD and start, at the prompt I press my F6 button and when the time comes up to install the drivers from the floppy, it comes up with the usual

"You have chosen to configure a SCSI adapter for use with Windows using a device support disk provided by an adapter" and it lists the choices of drivers as follows:

Intel (R) ICH7R/DH Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) ICH7MDH Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E Sata Raid Controller

Now the laptop has an ATA controller which is an:

Intel (R) ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 2850

and a AHCI controller (which is the default enabled for Vista) of:

Intel (R) 82801 HEM/HBM Sata AHCI Controller

In this driver install screen I believe I should see a list of the possible AHCI controllers for which I am trying to install the driver not the ATA controlllers that I am seeing. This list should look like:

Intel (R) 82801ER Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) 82801FR Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) 82801GR/GH Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) 82801GHM Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) 631xESB/632xESB Sata Raid Controller
Intel (R) 82801R/DO/DH Sata Raid Controller

I can't install my driver as I don't have the listed device as a choice to install a driver for. I can pick the last ATA controller just to see if it loads my floppy drivers and it does pull the files off of the floppy but then it tells me that it has a Windows default driver that is good for that adapter (as Windows has the correct ATA drivers), if i tell it to use the driver on the disk anyways it loads the iaStor.sys but then gives me the BSOD with an error code of:
***STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78B2524, 0xC0000034,0x000000000,0x000000000)

In the BIOS there is no Advanced tab to change drive configuration. I think I could work through this if I could get the AHCI adapters to show up in the XP install, but they won't.

My driver files on the floppy are IAAHCI.INF, IAAHCI.CAT, IASTOR.INF, IASTOR.CAT, IASTOR.SYS, and TXTSETUP.OEM

Has anyone done this before or does anyone have any clues on what's eluding me? Any help would be appreciated

Thanks, Tom
 
Vlite will slipstream necessary AHCI & SATAII drivers (that you download independently) into a cd image and let your burn an all-in-one installation disk of XP. It adds the needed drivers to the XP disk. You don't need to F6 during install, just proceed like normal.

The dual boot thing, that's another question. 🙂
 
you have RAID driver, not AHCI for same strange reason
those are entries to expect:

"Intel(R) 82801FBM SATA AHCI Controller"
"Intel(R) 82801GR/GH SATA AHCI Controller"
"Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller"
"Intel(R) 631xESB/632xESB SATA AHCI Controller"
"Intel(R) 82801HR/HH/HO SATA AHCI Controller"
"Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller"
"Intel(R) ICH9 SATA AHCI Controller"

one of them is matching your controller, i have no clue which one.

get the driver here:

Intel® Matrix Storage Manager Driver
 
Yea, the link you gave me is the same link I downloaded and the same files that were on my floppy, although the install screen doesn't list the AHCI options, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

The driver I need is the one for the
Intel (R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller
 
Actually going back and reloading the drivers on my disk, I find that I did end up having my device shown but the file loaded is the same "IAStOR.SYS and still when the install says Windows Starting, it then goes into the Blue Screen of Death and gives me the same error that I listed above.
 
I've had this happen with a different Dell laptop, trying to install XP, and needing the AHCI drivers. Made a floppy with newest drivers, pressed F6, windows setup said it already had a copy of the drivers. No matter which one I selected, it would BSOD.

It turned out that the XP install disc I was using was a Dell OEM, that had prior-generation Intel IASTOR drivers slipstreamed, and those were conflicting at install time.

I had to install Win98SE onto the laptop, and then I ran the XP install from inside Windows 98se, and in that case, setup did NOT install the OEM slipstreamed drivers, so I could finally install the drivers off of the floppy and get them to "take".

It was a painstaking processs.
 
You know that sounds like my exact issue. I'm using the same disk and Windows always tells me it has a version of the correct driver. Installing Windows 98SE will work with an AHCI system? I'll have to look in my archives, believe it or not I think I have a Windows 95 Install disk and floppy and I know I used to have Windows 98SE hanging around, I'll have to check. How do you install XP from inside 98SE, just insert the disk and upgrade?

Man that brings me back, I remember getting that BSOD often on those older systems for no apparent reason!
 
So now I have gotten a disk that will work and the drivers load fine and it gets to the point where I choose what partition to install my XP system on but it won't let me do this as it says the disk has the maximum amount of partitions on it.

This laptop came with the following setup: There is a 39 MB partition which has a Simple Layout and a Basic filesystem on it. There is another partion which is 2.50 GB with a simple layout and a Basic filesystem on it. These both have 100% free space according to the Vista Disk manager. Then there is the 185 GB partition which has the main Vista operating system (System, Boot, PageFile, Active , Crash Dump, Primary Partion) is formatted in NTFS and is 86% Free and there is the Recovery Partion which is in NTFS and is 50 % free.

I understand the main partition and the recovery partition, but what are the other two used for?

I'm wondering if I can remove the 2.50 GB partition and then format the 40GB along with the extra 2.5 GB as my NTFS partition for XP. This way I won't have the maximum number of partitions and will be able to format this as a simple volume?

Any thoughts?
 
I've found out what the partitions are, the first small one is the Dell utility platform with Dell diagnostics accessed from the BIOS menu and the last 2.5 GB one is the Dell Media Direct parttition. I think I'll delete the Recovery partition as this has Vista and I can just use the Vista Backup utiltiy to put my backup on a separate disk (removable). Then I'll format my 40 GB partition for XP. The Media Direct feature seems to be a neat feature, it allows you to boot directly from power off into that MD Partition in a few seconds which allows you to play media or check schedules without having to load the full operating system (not that the OS takes that long to load)? Less things running in the background, I guess, could get better playback.
 
i think your problem is with the dell MD partition as far as dual boot, the notebook forum is a good place for info on that subject, ive got the 9300 that has the eisa partition, afaik its only a hardware diagnostic partition with no recovery options in it that ive seen when i booted to it, i may be mistaken but i think the MD partition has to be added after the os partitions has been loaded.
 
I don't really have a problem with dual booting, my problem was just finding how to put the correct drivers for the AHCI into the XP install and then finding a partition to put the XP on. My problem with the drivers was nailed by VirtualLarry in that I was using a Dell OEM install disk that had prior generation iastor drivers slipstreamed into it. Using another XP disc without those, allowed me to overcome that. My next hurdle was figuring out which partition to delete to allow me to format my 40GB partition to accept the XP install.

Leaving the small utility partition and the MD partition will still allow those two feature to function (although I'm not sure if there is anything useful on the utility one). This is because the utility one is booted from a choice on the BIOS and the MD feature boots that partition from the separate Media Direct button on the keyboard (without an operating system running). Using the EasyBcd utility will give me a choice to start either the XP or Vista system when the boot partition looks to the BCD utility to start Vista at power-on.

I'm not sure what the "Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows Operating System in a dual boot configuration" link was for, I wasn't having that problem. Who knows, maybe I might need that advice but I don't think so as I'm not directly changing the BCD file.

Thanks for the advice
 
xp and vista boot just fine on my system, without any fuss, loaded xp then vista and i am presented a choice what os to load and also can set the time out.
 
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