So I've been trying to expunge Vista from my new Thinkpad and install XP (and in the process I accidentally erased and reformatted my external hard drive. see this thread for that horror story) but when I boot from the XP CD and go into Windows Setup, it tells me that it can't detect my Thinkpad's hard drive. The drive is labeled in Explorer as "SW_preload" with the Vista logo on it, if that makes a difference. Can anyone recommend a reliable app to do this?
Searching for an app to wipe my drive clean
- Thread starter nedney
- Start date
download the manufactures HD utility and use it to create the partition and do the formating then xp will see the disk.
The drive is a Hitachi and the only utility I can see on their site that seems like it would do this is Disk Manager, but they no longer offer that because Win2k and XP don't need it. Any suggestions for a Hitachi or 3rd-party app?
If the OP (original poster) has a "new Thinkpad", as stated, and he wants to "expunge Vista", then he probably has one of the newer SATA controllers which work by default in "AHCI" mode. These controllers are NOT detected by any version of XP. They will not be detected by UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD). If you boot the manufacturers diagnostics, you may be able to wipe the drive. But you still can't install XP -- the XP install CD will NOT see the drive. There have been many comments in many threads about problems trying to install XP on newer notebooks which came from the factory with Vista.
Some have reported success by going into the CMOS setup and changing the SATA controller from "AHCI" to "IDE". If you don't have this option in your CMOS setup, you may be out of luck. A friend of mine set out down this path, and had to bring his notebook to me because he had wiped Vista, could not install XP, and had no restore disk. My advice to you is, do some serious searching online to see if it is possible to install XP and get ALL of your devices working (sound, network, wireless network, etc). Do this searching BEFORE you wipe out Vista.
Some have reported success by going into the CMOS setup and changing the SATA controller from "AHCI" to "IDE". If you don't have this option in your CMOS setup, you may be out of luck. A friend of mine set out down this path, and had to bring his notebook to me because he had wiped Vista, could not install XP, and had no restore disk. My advice to you is, do some serious searching online to see if it is possible to install XP and get ALL of your devices working (sound, network, wireless network, etc). Do this searching BEFORE you wipe out Vista.
Well, I had the option to get the Thinkpad with XP, but opted for Vista Basic since it was cheaper and I already have a copy of XP. And why would XP not be able to see the new controller? That seems just plain stupid to me.
So I switched the SATA controller from AHCI to "Compatibility," and XP Setup could see the disc. I haven't wiped Vista yet, but I did install XP on the drive. I'm gonna make sure I can properly install all my drivers (Lenovo didn't include a drivers disc) before I wipe it clean and install XP solo.
So, given that XP probably won't read my drive if I switch it back to AHCI, is there anyway to resolve the problem you've described?
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